


Forbidden Magic

by Grace Kay (Drummerchick7)



Series: Forbidden Magic [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Adventure, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:49:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 75
Words: 370,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drummerchick7/pseuds/Grace%20Kay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thrust from the Circle's watchful gaze, Solona Amell fights to save Ferelden from the Blight. Along the way, she learns of love, the world, and herself, and becomes more powerful than anyone could have possibly imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm updating this story, clarifying some things and bringing it in line with Inquisition. It will be slow, as this fic is looooong. But a chapter or two a week will be read and edited. Also, I'm going to go ahead and include my original author's notes. For posterity. Or something.
> 
> Most things belong to Bioware. Solona and the AU aspects are inventions of my own sad little brain.
> 
> Long original A/N (feel free to skip to start of story): So, I've been wanting to do a Dragon Age fic for a while now. An idea was floating around in my head, but it wasn't compelling enough to write down until I started the game as a mage recently. Then it got interesting, and what you're about to read in the prologue is what I sort of narrated to myself as I made my Warden; sort of an explanation to myself for why should would have the appearance I was giving her. I have a bit of this written, which allowed me to go back and make the beginning something that was actually, you know, legible.
> 
> There will be some tweaks to the story, and I've come up with something different for my mage that hopefully makes this different enough from just a novelization of the game that it'll keep people's interest. It also won't be a regurgitation of game dialogue or plot events, though you will see some of the more unforgettable in-game conversations make an appearance. I want to follow canon, but I will also be straying from it, sometimes in little ways, sometimes in major ways.
> 
> There will also be some reference to characters from DAII. It will also involve Mature content, most of it of a lesbian nature. Eventually. You have been warned. Also, it's a working title, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick formatting note: It appears that at some point, the line inserts got deleted somehow. I'm going to go through and fix them, but it'll take some time, as this is a huge fic. I apologize for it making the reading more difficult.

They cut her hair in punishment; hold her down and crop it all off, not bothering to avoid nicking her scalp with the shears. They do not stop there, however, finishing the job by lathering her head and shaving her bald.

The feel of the razor as it scraped over her head makes her wince, though she is smart enough to keep from doing so. She can't just hear it; she can  _feel_  the sound, feel every strand as it is cut. Her arms are manacled behind her back, her face held in place by strong, armored hands, the metal of the gauntlets biting into her skin. She glares venom at the blonde man, a friend, holding her in place. He tries to mumble an apology, but she will not hear it. She knows he feels for her, but what man who felt such for a woman would force this upon her?

She just wanted her freedom. She wanted to see her family, experience the world a little. So when she'd stumbled upon her phylactery while tidying up the storage area, she took her chance, slipping it into her pocket before bed that night. Two days later, she snuck through the halls of the Circle Tower, using a spell to slip out a window and land safely many feet below. She smashed the vial containing her blood and discarded the shards in the lake, swimming the frigid waters to her freedom. It was incredibly stupid to do so, but she was confident she could return her body to its normal temperature once she'd hit land. Fires were something she was actually good at.

She succeeded, traveling with what money she had borrowed from Jowan to Lothering, seeking out family in the last place she had known them. She had not found her parents, but she had found kin, and spent many weeks with them. As the ice started melting, she left their abode, striking out for the capital, where she'd been told her parents now lived.

* * *

The next step in her humiliation is to mark her skin permanently, so that everyone who ever sees her will know that she had tried – and failed – to escape.

Three men are needed to hold her down as they tattoo her skin, putting a remarkably pretty-looking flourish on her face, starting just under her right eye. It hurts, but she refuses to show that it does. She will forever be marked apostate, as a mage who attempted to leave the "protection" the Chantry offers. It is never clear whether they mean protection  _for_  the mages, or  _from_  the mages.

Growing up, she had believed everything she was told. She felt guilty for her power, vowing to the Maker to make up for it by learning everything she could. She vowed to be more in control than any other mage thus far. Instead, by reading and learning so much through the vast library available to them – their only chance to experience anything outside the Chantry and the Circle – she came to the realization that she lived in a gilded cage. It might have warm beds and hot food, but she and her kind wielded a power that could be used for good, and instead, they were kept away from society, like lepers. Which, as it turned out, was something magic could  _cure_ , if only they were let out of their cage to  _help_  those in need, instead of just those who could pay the Chantry and the Circle for their services. It disgusted her, and she began to long for a way out.

She'd found it, found her kin, and eventually, found her parents. Her parents, who panicked and turned her into the Templars as soon as she'd fallen asleep that night. She awoke to three armed and armored men incanting their energy-draining spells, and she had been pulled from her parents' home gagged and bound, tossed into the back of a cart, losing consciousness on the road.

Now she is here, the biting needle and stinging ink marking her forever as a mage who had failed to keep her freedom. She would never forget that betrayal.

She is then thrust into her Harrowing, with no rest, no food, not even a healing ointment for the nicks on her head. Her face is still red and puffy from its earlier marking.

The First Enchanter, Irving, her lifelong teacher, wears an expression of such disappointment as she is frog-marched to the lyrium podium. He does not expect her to survive. The Templars surrounding her do not expect her to survive.

Her expression hardens. She will prove them wrong.

* * *

She defeats the demon and sniffs out the true risk – Mouse: a demon, not a downed mage. They are all so surprised when she awakens, in full control of herself. Cullen nearly faints, walking her back to her room with a spring in his step. He stammers as he bids her goodnight, but she has no patience to reassure his bad flirting: he held her down during her shame, and she likely will never forgive him that. She sleeps the sleep of the dead until Jowan awakens her. He listens and holds her as she pours her ordeals out to him, sharing his own in return.

Now that she is a full mage of the Circle, she can help  _him_ , at least, even if she cannot help herself.

Only it doesn't go quite as she might have hoped. Jowan  _is_ a blood mage. He is able to escape, but she feels uneasy with it. The only reason she doesn't end up Tranquil in punishment – a completely inappropriate use of the Rite of Tranquility, but no one seems to be willing to split hairs – is that the visiting Warden-Commander steps in, invoking his Rite of Conscription and taking her away with him. She only wishes that she'd broken the rules  _before_  her new phylactery had been sent to Denerim.

Punishing weeks on the road, followed by her first encounter with the Darkspawn and an introduction to the legend of Flemeth in the flesh, and she is drinking Darkspawn blood after watching her fellow recruits succumb either to the taint or the fear of it. The next night, they are all betrayed by a hero, and the only thing she can think as she is overwhelmed is, "Lovely…"


	2. Lothering

 

She awoke with a start.

"Easy! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." The voice came into focus. Alistair. So none of it was actually a dream. The fight at the Tower of Ishal, the wood legend Flemeth saving them and sending Morrigan along with them. None of it. "Were you dreaming, Solona?"

The brand new warden didn't answer, just sitting up and giving him a nod, running a hand over her hair as she let her dream-fogged head clear. It had been a month since Duncan had taken her from the Tower. Her hair was growing out, presenting her with a short bristle of maybe an inch over her entire head. The lack of soap made it soft, at least. And she hadn't needed to brush it over the last month at all, which was incredibly convenient, as she didn't own a brush anymore.

"The dreams are the most unsettling part, I think. It takes a while, but they do subside. You'll have some sleepless nights until then, however." His voice was light, but his eyes were sympathetic. Solona appreciated it, but trust of the former templar was coming very slowly. It helped that they'd survived Ostagar together, but it didn't change that it had been templars who had held her down, templars who had so permanently marked her, templars who, at the direction of the Chantry, had controlled every aspect of her life until Duncan had taken her away from the Circle. Alistair was kind, but his brethren had been anything but, and even  _he_  didn't seem to think much of apostates, if the things he'd said about Morrigan were any indication.

After a few minutes of silence she stood, heading off into the woods to relieve herself. The dog got up and followed her, making sure she was alright before heading off to ensure no one disturbed her privacy. In addition to not sleeping well, the trail food was wreaking havoc on her stomach. It made for too many embarrassingly long trips to use the privy, or, rather, a hole in the forest floor. This was not helped by her suddenly voracious appetite. Morrigan had taken no pains to show her contempt, calling her a spoiled Tower child, a willing prisoner who was too accustomed to good food and a soft bed. Solona said nothing to contradict her because the other mage was right; she had lived in the lap of luxury when compared with Morrigan's existence. She couldn't help but feel that Morrigan had come out the stronger for it.

The witch clearly did not know that the tattoo upon her face marked her as an escaped and reclaimed mage, but she had not yet enlightened the woman. The failure was shameful enough as it was.

When she returned to the fire, she sent Alistair off to bed, taking the last watch of the night with the dog. She'd decided to call him Max, the name she'd hoped to give a dog when she was a little girl, before the Circle. He was a good dog, understood most of everything she said. And he was a blessedly silent companion, comforting and warm, a solid presence, without endless prattle. It wasn't that she didn't like conversation, but right now her only conversation partners were a templar and a surly witch who saw her as the epitome of everything the Circle stood for.

She sighed. Life had become much more difficult for Solona Amell.

* * *

The highwaymen lay dead at their feet.

They had been fools, really, to try to hustle two mages, a warrior, and a giant mabari war hound. They were not accustomed to people who could truly resist, who could successfully fight back. Solona really didn't feel too awful for killing them. Now, though, she was presented with an entirely different dilemma from when she had just needed to decide whether or not to kill them.

"So what do we do with all their things? There's no way we can return any of it to the poor sods they took it from." Solona poked the dead bandit leader's shoulder with a toe.

"Take what we need and leave the rest." Morrigan's answer was curt and to the point, very much like anything she had ever said in their company.

Alistair answered her angrily. "We can't do that! It doesn't belong to us! We could put word out that the refugees here could come looking for their things, at the very least!"

Solona tried very hard not to roll her eyes. "Morrigan's right. If we can find things we need, we should take them. We could even sell some of the more valuable items at some point. Better us than scavengers, anyway. At least with us it'll help to stop the Blight."

Morrigan's smirk bordered on a sneer. The two mages bent to begin gathering coin purses, Alistair grumbling as he began shuffling through the crates. In the end, they each had a fresh change of clothing, an assortment of weapons they could sell, and the donkey that had pulled the bandits' cart. Their haul had been good and, all in all, they would be living more comfortably from now on – even Alistair admitted it.

"Where should we go now? There's a Chantry here, I could see if I can find any news." Alistair led the donkey. He had quite the eclectic collection of talents, donkey-handling apparently among them.

Solona answered him before Morrigan could throw in a biting remark. "You can go there if you wish, but you'll have to excuse the two of us. I expect we would be less than welcome there at the moment."

"But you're a Grey Warden!"

"I may be, but Morrigan is not. And we have no way to prove it. And besides," she added, gesturing toward her face and hair, "they will see the mark of an escapee long before they will stop to listen to our tale. Not that they would believe it, anyway."

Morrigan's face took on an interesting expression, but she didn't say anything. Alistair deflated some as Solona's explanation. "I suppose you're right. Well, how about you take care of selling these things?"

Solona nodded. "I can do that. I have family in Lothering I need to see first, however. I'd like to see if I can't convince them to flee before it's too late."

Alistair eyebrows rose toward his hairline at this. "Family? You didn't say you were from here."

"I'm not. I have an aunt here. She and my cousins took me in for a while when I escaped the Circle."  _It was my decision to seek out the parents I hadn't seen since I was five that sent me back to the Circle_. She left that part unsaid.

"Alright, well, I guess Morrigan can, then? Will you be alright with that, Morrigan?"

"You need not concern yourself with me. I will sell these items, purchase things I am in need of, and meet the two of you at the tavern? We may as well get a meal while we are here, yes? I, for one, grow weary of the stores growing mildew in Alistair's pack."

Solona smirked at the dig. "Sounds good to me." Morrigan nodded and began to pick her way alone along the road toward the village, her rucksack stuffed full of the items they wished to sell and not keep. Alistair rolled his eyes and turned back to Solona. "Would you mind taking the wagon?" he asked her.

Solona nodded, taking it without further comment. She was looking forward to seeing her cousins. Maybe she could even bathe, eat a meal that was actually cooked – Morrigan was not joking about the state of their food supplies.  _I really am soft. I want to see my cousins for creature comforts, at least as much as to warn them of the Blight_.

She finished berating herself and picked up the pace, losing track of the others not long after. Max trotted along at her side, obediently leaving the donkey alone. They would have to restock for the animal, find a farrier for its feet at some point, but it was well provisioned for the moment. The dog was another story. She idly wondered if he could hunt.

* * *

Her aunt Leandra's house was on the edge of town. It was a modest size. Their children had to share a room, but what family didn't have to do that in a town like this? She'd spent some time here when she'd originally run from the Circle, participating in some delightfully normal activities, like gardening, cleaning, and cooking. Carver had been home briefly on leave and had taught her some about bladework, and their older sister Damian, also home on leave, had taken her out drinking for the first time. She'd even lain with one of the barmaids, an opportunity she had never had in the Circle. It didn't matter that Damian had probably put the woman up to it; it had been wonderful and eye opening, and Solona couldn't wait for the opportunity to present itself again.

She and Bethany had had the most fun together, however. They learned a great deal from each other. Bethany learned some of the spells and disciplining exercises Solona brought from the Tower, while Solona learned some of the more forbidden spells and meditation techniques they did not teach in the Circle. Solona was convinced that she would not have survived her Harrowing had it not been for the many nights she had spent awake and practicing magic with Bethany. Which, of course, only served to confirm her opinion that the Circle made mages weak so as to control them better, whether any one person was doing so purposfully or not. The sheer number of mages in that one place wielded the power to overwhelm their captors ten times over, and yet they huddled with their books, sleeping on their warm beds and eating their hot food. She was ashamed to think she'd been like them for so long. At least she'd gotten Jowan out…

She still didn't know how to feel about that. On the one hand, she was actually incredibly proud of him for finding the information required to begin practicing blood magic. On the other hand, it was incredibly dangerous, and skirted the edges of being willing to make deals with demons, to sacrifice the lives of those around him for more power. And as she'd learned during her Harrowing, demons generally didn't force themselves upon you. They were clever, devious, more likely to persuade you than to fight you. They seduced with power, your own desires their weapons to tempt you. By not going through his Harrowing, he had no experience with this temptation.

_I sound like the Circle. What do I want to do, force him to face a demon so that I know he can withstand temptation? How is that fair or just?_

Her introspection ended when the door was answered. Her aunt's face peeked out, a pleasant enough expression on it. Her face lit up at first when she saw that it was her niece, bringing a surge of warmth into Solona's heart. She'd only spent a small amount of time with the woman, but it hadn't been that long ago, and it had been the most joyous part of her life this far. Her aunt's expression quickly fell, however, as her eyes swept over Solona's extreme appearance, taking in the short hair and tattoo on her face. Solona's chest constricted some; she didn't cherish the thought that she would have to tell her what had happened to her, how her parents had greeted her return.

"Oh, you poor dear. Come in, come in. I'll have Bethany take care of your donkey, and you can tell us what happened." She moved back to make room for Solona to pass through, not even commenting on the giant mabari war hound that followed at her heels.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Aunt Leandra. I was passing through, and it didn't seem right to not come speak with you." She signaled for the dog, and he trotted off to curl up on the floor by the wall.

"It's no trouble at all, child. Are you hungry? Let me get you something; you look like you've lost all the weight I put on you when you were here last. And I'll find Bethany, too. Just take a seat at the table there."

Solona smiled to herself. He aunt was a busybody; there was no getting around it. As she moved from the hall to the kitchen, however, she stopped dead, her thoughts immediately derailed. Sitting at the table was a Chantry sister. The robes caught her attention first, but the woman's face became the mage's main focus after only a second. She had fiery red hair, pale skin, and lips that pouted in just the right way to make Solona immediately want to grab her and kiss her. She couldn't decide if she should thank the Maker for putting the beautiful creature right in front of her, or curse him for wrapping her in the vestments of the organization that had marked her so permanently as a criminal.

When she had spent time with her cousins, it had become clear to her that she was attracted exclusively to women. And then she had started noticing just how  _many_  women always surrounded her. Before she had spent time with Damian, who also fancied other women, she hadn't given much thought to sex or romance. As a mage of the Circle, you were not allowed to take a lover, nor to marry or bear children. Sometimes a mage would become pregnant mysteriously. The father was always found out – usually one of the Templars – and sent far away in shame, the child taken from the mother immediately and raised by the Chantry. Solona had learned to simply ignore that part of herself, burying herself in books and learning.

Until coming back to Lothering and spending time with an apostate and her accepting family. And now she was back there again.

Solona found that, as she studied the Chantry sister before her, she, too, was being studied. The way the woman looked at Solona made her curious. The woman was almost shocked. She murmured something to herself, setting her cup down and staring unabashedly at the mage. They made eye contact for a moment that stretched into eternity, until Leandra reappeared, breaking the spell.

"Oh, Solona, I swear, I can't believe that you got so damn  _tall_!" She found herself being hugged by the shorter woman, and couldn't help but smile.

"Well, the Circle was good for one thing, at least – I never did go hungry." She was released and pushed into a chair, a plate of bread and cheese being set in front of her.

"Oh, my manners! This is Leliana, a lay-Sister of the Chantry, dear. Don't you worry – she's friendly to our family."

The sister seemed to rouse herself from introspection, offering a pleasant smile. "It is wonderful to meet you…" Leliana trailed off, eyebrows rising questioningly.

_Orlesian to boot? Be still, my heart!_  Solona held out her hand across the table. "Solona Amell. It is good to meet you, as well, Lady."

She was surprised to watch the sister blush and smiled to herself. The things she had learned from the elder Hawke definitely had an effect on women, then.

"So why are you here, Solona? You looked… very different, when you were here a few weeks ago." Leandra's voice was softer now, less exuberant, and only softened more as she spoke. Leandra knew  _exactly_  what the shaved head and marks upon her face meant.

It was a touchy subject, and Solona wasn't sure she wanted to share in front of a stranger. She took a bite of cheese and a hunk of bread to buy some time. While she chewed, Leliana spoke up.

"I should be going. I don't wish to pry into your family matters. Thank you for the tea, Leandra."

The mage watched the redhead leave, grateful for the privacy, but sad that she would likely never see the woman again. She contemplated another bite of bread, but now she was alone with her aunt, felt it was time to speak.

"I had an amazing time here, Auntie. I…  _did_  go find my parents in Denerim. They…" She looked up, into her aunt's eyes, and tried desperately to find a way of saying it without saying it. But there was no way, so she hung her head and got through it, not daring to watch the expression on her face, nor to pause long enough for her own emotions to show. "They did not approve of my escape. They were frightened of having a mage in their home. The Templars came while I slept and took me back to the Circle."

She heard Leandra gasp, finally looking up to see her face drained of color. A pang of guilt hit her heart so solidly it felt as though she had actually been struck.  _I should have kept it to myself_.  _Damn it all_.

"I'm sorry, Auntie, I shouldn't have-"

"Don't you dare apologize! I encouraged you to seek them out. I never would have suspected they would have reacted that way! You are their _child_!" The color had come back to her face almost as swiftly as it had left it. She was now very angry.

"They have other children now," Solona admitted quietly. It had been amazing to discover the young children, one just on the cusp of adulthood, who looked so like her. To be deprived of them just sank the knife of her parents' betrayal that much further into her heart. "Children they wished to save from me. The Chantry has been very thorough in teaching the ordinary folk to fear abominations." She couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice, no matter how hard she tried. "They feared me, feared what I might do to their children, and feared the retaliation they might receive for harboring an apostate." She heaved a sigh. "But it worked out in the end. I am free of the Circle now. Legally."

Leandra's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

"Yes, I-"

"Cousin!"

Bethany burst into the room, hurling herself at Solona and pulling her from her chair into a fierce hug. Solona smiled, taking the small woman into her arms and hugging her back just as tightly, lifting her off her feet momentarily. She glanced up and saw that Leandra wore a most pleasant expression, though the tension around her eyes hinted at the shock and anger she likely still felt.

"You're back! Oh, but look at you! The templars caught you? What happened? I thought you destroyed your phylactery before you broke out? Why are you here?"

"Relax, child," Leandra gently scolded, chuckling as Bethany blushed and released her cousin. "Let her breathe, and perhaps your questions will be answered. She was just about to elaborate." Bethany nodded and sat at the table, taking a bit of the food for herself.

Solona explained that she'd been caught by the templars, catching Bethany up to where she'd gotten with Leandra. Her cousin was just as shocked as her mother that Solona's own parents had turned her in, but was eager to hear about how she escaped again. Solona didn't go into the details of Jowan's blood magic use, saying only that she helped to destroy the phylactery of an apprentice to help him escape.

"Now, the day of my Harrowing, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden was visiting the Tower. I had a chance to speak with him some. He was still there when I helped my friend escape, and recruited me as a Grey Warden before they could make me tranquil."

"Hold on. Are you saying you're a Grey Warden?" Bethany's tone made her disbelief clear.

"Yes, actually. And after the disaster at Ostagar, I am one of only two left alive in all of Ferelden."

"Wait. Ostagar?" Leandra rested a hand on Solona's forearm to keep her from continuing. "Then you might know Carver and Damian's fate?"

"They were there? At Ostagar?" She'd had no idea. What hadn't she seen them at all?

"Yes. They're in the King's army, remember?"

"Shit. The army was decimated, Auntie. There were other survivors, but they were few and far in between, and had quit the field by the time I regained consciousness." She thought it best  _not_  to mention Morrigan and her mother.

Her aunt's face fell. "My babies…"

"Mother, I'm sure they survived. That's what Hawkes do." Bethany's voice was firm, stern, and her expression showed she was confident in her assertion, even if worried. "They'll be home soon, just you wait."

Solona shook her head. "You can't wait for them. The Darkspawn will be upon this village shortly. I came by to warn you. You must flee. Take everything you can carry, leave nothing that will aid them. They are vile creatures who have no room in this world." She thought of the Chantry sister she'd met briefly. "And make sure your friends go with you."

"I cannot leave without my children, not without giving them a chance to come home." Leandra stood and began moving around the kitchen. "But I can make sure we're ready to go the moment they get here." She hung her head for a moment. "Or the moment it's clear they won't be coming."

"I am sorry, Bethany," Solona murmured, watching her aunt bustle around the kitchen. She had just brought so much bad news into this house.

"Don't be, Cousin. You may have saved our lives. I will help Mother prepare." She smiled, only halfheartedly, but Solona didn't blame her. This was not the happy homecoming she would have liked. There was a Blight coming, and this puny village would be lost to it before the Darkspawn were stopped by Loghain's army up north. She got up from the table, determined to help them in some way to make up for the heartbreak she had brought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original A/N: Aaaaand here we have the Hawkes! I noticed at some point that the names matched Leandra's maiden name, so it made sense that they would be related. I think that might even be canon? I can't remember. There will be a bit more of an explanation of this later, but here you go for now. Reviews/suggestions welcome, and please, let me know if this jumps too far forward. I didn't really feel like it was necessary to go over the events of Ostagar and the conversation with Flemeth in the woods. Lothering is where my story really starts to take on unique elements, so jumping here made sense... at least, it did to me.


	3. Leaving Lothering

Solona left the house freshly bathed and in entirely new clothing, Max trotting happily next to her.

_"You can't walk around in Circle robes. Besides, I imagine they're terribly uncomfortable on the road. No, you're only an inch or two taller than Damian; you'll take some of her things. They are meant for travel, and will keep you safer if you run into more bandits."_

Leandra had dressed her in a light, white flowing long-sleeved shirt, hard leather vest to hold her breasts in place and provide a degree of protection, and black hose tucked into calf-high traveling boots. She then sent her on her way with food, water and wine, and a set of long daggers that the elder Hawke child had left at home.

Solona felt safer, somehow, dressed and armed as she was. Walking around in something other than robes would help tremendously, and she even knew some of how to use the weapons, thanks to Carver, though she doubted very much that she would use them in a fight. Her magic was what came most natural to her. Still, a mage pulling a knife could be a useful surprise.

As she made her way back to the main road of the village, donkey and cart in hand, she was surprised to see the Chantry sister from earlier. She was no longer wearing her Chantry robes, having changed into tight leather breeches and a tight blouse, showing off each of her curvy assets in an almost scandalous way without showing any skin. She was covered from head to toe, and yet it seemed Solona could see every detail of her body. She supposed it was the same for herself, dressed as she was in the tight vest and hose, but she had far less to show off than the Sister.

"Hello, again," she said as Solona approached. She fell in step beside her, hefting a travel bag upon her shoulder. Solona noted that the woman bore a longbow and a wicked set of daggers, long and short, tucked into more than one inventive place for a sheath to fit, a short sword's pommel poking out from under her bow.  _Some sister._

"Hello. Leliana, was it?" She continued walking at a slow pace. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I will be frank. I know you are a Grey Warden, and I would like to accompany you on your travels."

Solona stopped, turning to face the redhead fully and raising an eyebrow as she looked down upon her. She came barely to the mage's chin. "And how do you know this? Were you listening at the door?"

"No! No, I…" Leliana hesitated, looking away from Solona's gaze. "I saw your face in a dream. The Maker told me I  _must_  accompany you on your travels. You will save Ferelden, and all of Thedas. I would help in what ways I can." She finally looked up, holding Solona's gaze with her own.

Solona, for her part, would have thought the woman was crazy, had she not journeyed into the Fade so recently. As it was, her capacity for weird was pretty high. Still. A vision?

"A vision… The  _Maker_  showed you my face?"

"I know. It's crazy. I don't need you to tell me that. But nonetheless, I know your face, and I know you are a Grey Warden. And I do not wear these weapons for show." Her accent got thicker as her voice grew more impassioned, and by the time she was finished, she was standing at her full height as if in defiance. A full height that was now just past Solona's chin.

Solona just smirked. "Calm down, please. Believe it or not, I'm not willing to call you crazy. I have spent my life thus far around Chantry sisters."

Leliana relaxed, but also arched an eyebrow. "They have professed to seeing visions?"

Solona laughed. "No, no they haven't. But remember that I can make things move with my mind. Visions are child's play in comparison."

Leliana smirked slightly. "So you are willing to let me come along?"

Solona shrugged. "Why not? Our party is strange enough as it is, and we can use all the help we can get." She turned from her then, resuming her walk through the town.

"I… thank you, Warden."

"Just one thing."

"Yes?"

"Probably best not to mention your vision to the others. I don't know how Alistair would react, but Morrigan is the most caustic person I've met. You do  _not_  wish to be on the receiving end, trust me."

Leliana giggled, a sound that fluttered about in the air and made Solona's insides churn some. "Fair enough. I shall keep it to myself."

Solona smiled at her, noting once again just how beautiful the redhead was.  _Maker, I am not going to be able to concentrate with her around_.

The introduction to the rest of the group went about as she might have expected. Alistair was nice, pleasant. Morrigan gave Leliana one appraising look before shrugging and moving away. Max had received one head-pat earlier, on the road to the inn, and decided she could stay, jumping up and licking her face. The laugh that followed made Solona's heart flutter once more.

They secured the donkey and cart, ready to go into the inn for a meal before they left town. Little did they know what awaited them inside the tavern.

* * *

Leliana approached the leader of Loghain's soldiers with a saunter to her step. Solona did not like her getting so close, not after she had put all of her weapons down in the cart (at Solona's insistence, no less). But a moment later, it was clear that the woman knew what she was doing.

Getting very close to the man, she cocked a hip and spoke with a voice as smooth as butter, touched with an ever so slightly thicker purr of her Orlesian accent. "Surely we can talk this over, ser?"

His eyes were glued to her, his face smiling vaguely down at her. Before he could reply, however, her hands strayed to his hips, and in a flash she had both of his daggers in her hands. Bringing them up to cross in front of his neck, she yanked, slitting his throat in two places in one swift motion. She disengaged, avoiding most of the man's spurting blood, and the fight was on.

It didn't last long. As soon as Morrigan froze someone solid, the men couldn't get out the door quickly enough. This just made Morrigan laugh.

"Run while you can, you insignificant fools." The fact that the witch's declaration was not shouted, but drawled out in her typical sarcastic tone made it all the more chilling. Truly, Solona would be shaking in her boots if she were on the receiving end. She made a mental note, once again, to never piss the woman off.

She found Leliana kneeling over the man she had killed, finishing cleaning off the blades she had stolen from him. She straightened as Solona approached, tucking the blades into the belt she'd pilfered from him.

"Are you alright, Leliana?"

"Alright?" Alistair interjected, joining them as he replaced a chair he'd snatched up in lieu of his sword, which he had also left with their things at Solona's insistence. "Are you  _sure_  she's a member of the Chantry?"

"I was, yes. And I am fine. Thank you for the concern." Max came up and jutted his head into Leliana's hip, eliciting a smile from her as she ruffled his muzzle, not even needing to stoop, so great was his height – and so slight was her own.

Solona was overcome with guilt. She had endangered everyone. "I am… sorry. I am the one who insisted you leave your weapons. It was a fool thing to do. I will not make that mistake again. Clearly, I am not cut out to lead this group."

Leliana straightened, having crouched in front of the dog, looking as though she might speak, but was prevented from doing so by the innkeeper's approach.

"Out! You've spilled blood in my tavern; you'll not be served here. Out! Apostates, dogs, and a murdering Chantry sister! Indeed, what is the world coming to?" He mumbled the rest to himself as he stalked away, turning and glaring at them until they departed. In return for having paid for meals they didn't receive, they didn't bother clearing the dead bodies out for him.

"Come on. We can set up an early camp and see if Leliana is any better at cooking than the rest of us are," Alistair said with a wry grin, leading them back to the cart that held their belongings. Having learned her lesson, Solona passed everyone his or her weapons before taking her place leading the donkey.

On the outskirts of town, they came upon a creature in a cage. It was hunched over, it's bulk barely accommodated by its massive iron prison. As they drew to a close around it, Solona noticed that it had its eyes closed and it was speaking in an unfamiliar tongue. The deep, rumbling voice suggested that the creature was male, as did the lack of breasts and powerful build, but it was alien enough that she could not be sure.

Morrigan solved the mystery for her. "I believe 'tis a Qunari, one who submits to the Qun. This one looks like a male warrior, though I cannot be sure as I only know of them from Flemeth's descriptions."

The creature's eyes snapped open, and he drew himself up to the full height the cage would allow. "You are visitors from the village. Leave. I will not entertain you."

Solona answered him. "We are no gawkers come to poke you with sticks until you sing."

"Careful. The Revered Mother says he is here for murdering an entire family outside the village," Leliana whispered, having moved up right next to her completely silently.

"It is as she says," the creature rumbled, clearly having heard the Orlesian speak. Solona noted that he had ears of some size beneath the large horns jutting from his skull. "I recognize you. You are the one who brought me food and water two days ago. For that, I thank you." Leliana merely bowed her head in acknowledgement.

"He is a magnificent creature. If no one has sentenced him, I say we bring him with us. If we do not wish his aid, or he will not give it, I would still see him free of this cage." Morrigan narrowed her eyes at Solona in challenge.

"But he murdered an entire farmstead! How could you want him free?" Alistair's sense of right and wrong was a little too black and white for Solona's liking.

"Hush, Alistair. Not a single one of us have clean hands, least of all a templar." She turned back to the caged creature, ignoring Alistair's stung expression. "Perhaps you are looking to atone for your crimes?" He merely regarded her, curiosity in his intelligent eyes. "We fight the Blight. Would you seek atonement fighting alongside us?"

"You are Grey Wardens? My people have heard of your order." He regarded them silently for a moment. "I see not every legend is as it is told." After another moment, he nodded his head once, seemingly having come to a decision. "I will fight for you. If I do not find my atonement fighting the Blight, I will find it elsewhere."

"Fair enough. Do I have your word you will not turn on us, even should a decision we make be against your Qun?" She'd read some on his people. She knew enough to know she needed to extract this promise. Given his size, it was probably a smart move.

"Hmmm, you are familiar with the Qun? Yes, I swear, as the ones who release me from my prison, your decisions regarding the quest shall also be mine."

With a nod, Solona turned to the rest of the group. "Think the Revered Mother will part with the key?" She had a wry grin on her face, and Leliana, at least, returned it. Alistair was still too stung, and Morrigan was apparently incapable of mirth outside of cruelty.

"Actually, I have a better plan," Leliana offered, reaching a hand behind her back and producing a small leather bundle. When she unrolled it with a flourish, Solona saw an array of thin metal blades in a variety of sizes, shapes, and thicknesses. Leliana flushed slightly at the looks she was given from her companions. "I  _did_  say I wasn't  _always_  a lay-Sister…"

Solona recovered first. "Right, well, that should be incredibly useful. It's certainly a talent that none of the rest of us possesses. Carry on. I'll go back to town and see if I can't find him something more… appropriate to wear." She was now looking past his incredible visage, and had noticed that the giant grey-skinned man wore nothing more than a loincloth. It left little to the imagination, making it clear that he had a rather impressive manhood that she had no desire to become more familiar with. "Your name, ser?"

"I am called Sten."

Thirty minutes later had Sten wearing the largest pair of linen trousers she could find, which fit a little tightly, but which he deemed "acceptable," his torso left unadorned. Strapped to his back was a two-handed greatsword, a weapon he had requested from her as she left for town, and at his sides were the giant daggers Leliana had stolen from the soldier she had killed. They had dwarfed the Orlesian, but on the qunari, they seemed little more than toothpicks. He was truly gigantic.

Feeling better for the new companions they had acquired, Solona took up the lead once more, leading them out of the township of Lothering.

* * *

"So, why  _did_  you insist we not take weapons into the tavern earlier?"

Solona walked at the back of the group, leading the cart while alternating between staring at her feet and Alistair's back. She felt guilty for having snapped at him earlier, and was contemplating an apology, when Leliana's soft voice sounded the question. She had fallen back and slipped up next to the warden without a sound.

After a moment of deliberation, Solona answered honestly. "I've become accustomed to not drawing attention to myself. We are an eclectic enough group without walking into the tavern of a small village armed to the teeth." She laughed ruefully, shaking her head. "I certainly shall not make that mistake again."

"Well, I do not think it was such a bad reason," Leliana offered, clearly trying to assuage Solona's guilt. "The intention certainly had merit, and it seems as though we can all defend ourselves, even unarmed." She chuckled.

"It's okay, you don't need to do that. I am well aware of my shortcomings as a leader. Morrigan never fails to remind me of them, if nothing else."

Leliana clicked her tongue. "You were certainly correct in your warnings about her. Alistair said you met her in the Wilds?" At Solona's nod, she continued. "So I suppose that means the rest of what he told me about her is true, as well? A Witch of the Wilds?"

Solona chuckled. "I don't know if she is as the legends say, though I suspect her mother to be. I believe she is simply a very talented mage who had the fortune to be born outside of the Chantry's influence." She thought briefly of her parents, trying desperately to keep a scowl from covering her features. "However, the solitude, with only her cryptic mother to speak with, has left her with no concept of sociability. So while I am not nearly as powerful nor practiced as she, I like to think that what she gained in freedom, I make up for with the ability to speak to others without  _completely_  alienating them."

Leliana giggled, the sound once more making Solona feel as though she were being flirted with, causing a hot flush under her dark skin. "I agree that you are a much better conversationalist. I reserve judgment on your magical abilities, as I have not yet seen them for myself." She caught Solona's eye and winked. Solona felt her face grow hotter.

After a few moments of silence, Leliana spoke once more. "I have been curious. You called Leandra your aunt, said your name was Amell, but I thought she hailed from the Free Marches? She has told me that all her Amell family is still in Kirkwall."

Solona smiled. "Yes, her family is there. We aren't as closely related as aunt and niece, as I'm sure you could tell just by looking."

Leliana ducked her head. "It's true, you look nothing alike."

Solona laughed softly. "That's the understatement of the Age, with her skin light and my skin dark."

Leliana looked up, a twinkle in her eye. "Ah, but your hair is almost the same color! So I suppose there is  _some_  resemblance?"

Solona blinked at her a moment before smiling ruefully, eliciting another giggle from the redhead. "Well, yes, you could say that. However, hers is from aging gracefully. My hair is perfectly white from head trauma as a little girl."

Leliana seemed taken aback. "Oh dear, what happened?" She hesitated before adding, "And how did it also affect your eyebrows?"

Solona smirked. "When magic first came to me, I was falling from a very large height. I don't remember what I was doing, though I do remember that it was foolish. Just before I hit the ground, I slowed myself somehow. It was abrupt, and it hurt, and I still hit the ground hard enough to be knocked unconscious. I woke up in the custody of the templars – someone had witnessed my fall and called them, I suppose – with hair that began falling out and growing back without color." She paused to turn to the redhead, winking. "I suppose I hit my head hard enough that even my eyebrows were affected."

Leliana snickered, and Solona continued. "Anyway, you asked about my relation to Aunt Leandra. Her father and my grandfather were cousins. At some point, my grandfather bedded a very dark-skinned woman from Rivain, and took her for a wife when he found that she was with child. She eventually left, leaving him with a boy – my father. My father also married a woman of Rivaini descent, and here I am before you. They… had lost their nobility by then."

Leliana raised a brow. "So, a convoluted relation at best, then?"

Solona snorted. "You could say that. I went to them when I escaped the Circle a few months ago because I knew they would be sympathetic. Well, that, and the last time I saw my parents, we lived in Lothering." She shrugged. "It seemed the best place to go to find a friendly face."

Leliana was quiet for a moment before she responded. "If you don't mind me asking, why leave the Circle?"

Solona's features hardened. "I'm not sure that you would understand."

"If you do not wish to speak of it, I'll not pry further. You are just the first Circle mage I've ever met." She paused. "Probably because they're all in the Circle…"

Solona sighed, looking sideways at the redhead for a moment before answering her. "The Circle took me away from my parents when I was five years old – and unconscious, no less. I had no say in the matter, and didn't even get to say farewell. They raised me to fear my power, and to feel horribly guilty for damage done by the Tevinter mages years ago. When you are in the Circle, you are not allowed to visit the outside. Your entire world consists of the stone walls and the books. You are not allowed romance, nor are you allowed to even imbibe of too much food or wine. Occasionally, visitors come, but your family is never among them. They're not allowed, you see."

Leliana frowned. "That's horrible. You are never allowed to see your family again?"

Solona shook her head, her brows furrowed low over her eyes. "Not until you are a full mage, having passed the Harrowing. And by then, they are strangers, and the only people who mean anything to you are in that stone cage with you. I left because I saw it for what it was. My cage had comfort and hot food, and lots of learning, but it was still a cage, as sure as Sten's was." She smiled ruefully. "At least he was allowed to recognize it for what it was. You talk like this in the Tower and you suddenly find yourself trailed by a Templar no matter where you go."

Leliana clearly wasn't sure what to make of that last statement, but didn't press for clarification. Instead, she asked about something else. "I take it your family no longer lives in Lothering?" Solona nodded her affirmation, eyes narrowing as she stared ahead of her. She did not like where this was leading. "Did you not look for them?"

Solona was silent for so long that she was surprised by Leliana's restraint. The woman did not push, which was possibly why she got the answer she did. "I  _did_  seek them out. They were… unhelpful."

"Unhelpful?"

"They… were afraid of me, and sent for the templars."

Leliana was silent. Solona looked over to see a war of emotions on her face, but she did not speak. "Enough," the mage said finally, sparing Leliana the need to respond to her history. "Tell me some about you. How does a lay-sister know how to distract a man so thoroughly before killing him?"

A look she could not identify flashed over Leliana's features before she smiled. "Ah, but I was a travelling minstrel. Alas, I no longer have my lute, but the other cloistered sisters tell me I am still quite skilled with my voice."

Solona arched a brow. "A minstrel? You killed a man without getting a drop of blood on you, and then picked a lock to let out a convicted Qunari warrior. I am supposed to believe a musician can do these things?"

Instead of exposing some truth, Leliana simply laughed. "Yes, remarkable,  _non_? The life of a minstrel on the road is dangerous at times. More than one man has decided he could take what he wanted from me, and had I never learned to defend myself, they would have gotten it. I travelled with a troupe, which of course helped, and I learned how to fight with dirks and hunt with a bow. I even learned to pick locks, for work as a minstrel has never been considered steady, yes? I admit, I sometimes had to steal what I needed to survive. I gave up many vices when I left Orlais. I began to atone for them when I was called to the Chantry in Lothering."

Solona was quiet for a moment, digesting everything she'd been told. Finally, she spoke. "I suppose that all makes sense. But why Ferelden? Surely any place in Orlais is better than Lothering?"

"You would think. But my mother was Ferelden; I was born here, and I've always considered myself Ferelden. She served an Orlesian noblewoman who went back to Orlais a few years after the war. She took my mother with her, and I went with  _her_. When I tired of the life I was leading, I, like you, sought familiarity. I came across the border and wandered, playing in what taverns would have me, until I happened to attend a service in Lothering. There I stayed, though I took no vows. I found the spiritual life to be peaceful, and staying in one place for more than a month was definitely a novel thing."

Solona nodded. That made sense, she supposed, though so different from her own experience it was laughable. "Opposite of me. This is my first time on the road like this. Tell me, will I  _ever_  get used to it?"  _Will my_ _ **stomach**_ _ever get used to it?_

Leliana chuckled. "Yes, you will. And with me along, you might even stop losing weight." Solona's eyes snapped to Leliana, wondering if she meant what Solona  _thought_  she meant. Leliana nodded in answer. "It is a common enough affliction for those used to one kitchen, one cook, one place. Your body will adjust. There is no shame."

Morrigan's voice suddenly drifted to them from up ahead. "If you two are quite finished, Alistair, incompetent though he may be, has found us an adequate place to stop for the night."

Solona's stomach dropped a little. She was so enjoying speaking with the beautiful woman. Rolling her eyes, she encouraged the donkey forward. "Come along. Duty calls."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Okay, so. Some changes here. First, to the Amell family line that's mentioned in that random letter in DAII, and second, to Sten. Even though we were given far less choice in DAII, I liked the style of the game better - more artistic, the features of each person more expressive, and the fantasy creatures more stylized. I thought Sten's dramatic looks would present some interesting opportunities later. We'll see, though. Either way, I liked how he looked better.
> 
> The last thing is that Leliana is slightly OOC here, and not canon in the barfight, killing the man instead of entreating Solona to save them. But the scene wrote itself, and it just fit with the sort of more dangerous, agile, self-assured woman I was trying to portray. So I think I'll go ahead and stick with it.


	4. Assassins

Solona circled Morrigan, their pace matched step for step, their eyes not leaving each other.

Some time earlier, she had approached the witch, asking for her help.

" _Morrigan, I wish to learn to battle a mage."_

_Morrigan's eyebrows lift. "Why are you telling_ _**me** _ _?"_

_Solona rolls her eyes. "Because you are a mage, Morrigan. I have watched you. You are far better than I. Your power is more accessible. We were taught in the Circle to be cautious with power use, that to drain ourselves and need too much lyrium would invite demonic possession."_

_Morrigan scoffs. "'Tis a ridiculous notion! As long as you have the lyrium available, there is no reason not to use the energy you have if you need it."_

_Solona sighs, heaving herself down on the log next to the witch. "I know it's horseshit But that doesn't mean I can suddenly teach myself. I did fine at Ostagar with Alistair, but I would have done better had I been able to act more instantaneously. Our need of your mother's rescue might have been avoided had I been better."_

_Morrigan watches her in silence for a moment before speaking. "I think I know what it is. You were essentially taught to doubt your own instincts." Morrigan is silent a moment more, seeming to regard Solona critically before abruptly standing. "Yes, alright. I will teach you. But I will not coddle you. You_ _**will** _ _be going to sleep sore at night, at least until you are able to defend yourself."_

And now they were here. Solona did not know how to predict Morrigan's movements, nor was she able to cast spells as quickly. She suspected that Morrigan was right – she would indeed be going to bed very sore.

Twenty minutes later, her suspicions were confirmed. She hit the ground again, having broken the hold of the witch's hex – the casting of a nightmare into her mind – after a seeming eternity of maddening, flashing images. She tried to get up off the ground, but her arms and legs felt like they were made of liquid, and would not obey her commands.

"Perhaps you should stop for the night, Morrigan. I fear our warden will have to make the trip tomorrow in the cart should you continue." Leliana's voice lilted on the air toward Solona, and she groaned internally. She had not even noticed that she had an audience for her thrashing.

"Very well," Morrigan's crisp tone sounded. "You are not weak, Solona, I am surprised to say. In fact you are quite strong. You simply spend too much time preparing yourself. It is as I suspected: you need to learn to act upon your instincts. They serve you well, but you hesitate at every moment, even when trying to block an attack. You think far too long before beginning your incantations."

Solona looked up from the ground, smiling ruefully. "Whereas you barely incant at all."

"'Tis nothing more than discipline. You do not lack that. But you are far too deliberate for battle. 'Tis akin to a warrior pulling a series of steps in one fluid motion, instead of twenty separate ones." She came close, squatting upon the ground in front of the warden. "And given the physical presence you command, 'twould not hurt to learn more with your blades. If you find yourself facing an emissary tomorrow, you would do well to have a surprise available. Mages do not typically expect other mages to wield any physical weapon aside from their staff. And an emissary would tear you apart at the moment."

Morrigan then got up and walked off, leaving Solona lying on the ground. She rolled herself onto her back to find Leliana and Alistair hovering over her.

"That was quite a display. I had no idea," Alistair said, his tone almost conversational. "I've never actually  _seen_  mages battle like that before."

Solona closed her eyes with a heavy sigh. "I fear you did not today, either. Morrigan just handed me my own arse twenty times or so."

Leliana giggled. "Yes, she did. But it was also quite impressive. The sheer amount of punishment you took, if nothing else." She smirked, bending over to hold her hand out for the warden. "Now come, I imagine you will want to sleep the night through after the quite  _thorough_ thrashing you just took."

As Leliana pulled the warden to her feet, Alistair made an offer Solona couldn't refuse. "How about you take the last watch? You'll get the most uninterrupted sleep, and you can go to bed right now."

"Maker bless you, I can't possibly say no to that." Solona let go of the minstrel as Alistair walked off to prepare himself for his own watch. When she went to take a step, however, she faltered, she was so weary. Leliana caught her, wending an arm around her waist and pulling the mage's arm over her shoulder. Solona's heart fluttered at the full-body contact, but she managed to smile weakly down at the smaller woman. "Thank you. I'm afraid I am not accustomed to taking a beating like that."

As she caught Leliana's gaze, time seemed to slow down. The redhead's eyes were an impossible shade of blue. In the dark, her dilated pupils were pools of black within a deep pool of blue, reminding Solona instantly of the color gradient in a deep pond or lake. An image burst into her mind, aided by the feel of the woman's body pressed so close, of Leliana completely naked underneath her. She wondered what the woman's skin would look like under the soft glow of a fire, perhaps with red satin sheets. The thought made her heart skip a beat.

Time sped back up as they began to move toward their tent, Leliana looking away with a slight flush to her skin, a small smile dancing over her lips. One of the things they'd taken from the bandits had been this tent, which slept four people. The only people using it at the moment were Solona and Leliana, as Morrigan preferred sleeping under the stars and away from the others, and the boys agreed that the women should have it to themselves. Leliana had at one point playfully remarked that it seemed Max considered himself one of the ladies, as the dog insisted upon sleeping between their two bedrolls.

There was a hint of… something in the Orlesian's voice as she opened the tent and deposited the mage inside. Her voice was almost husky, her accent thicker. It seemed… seductive? But that could have been Solona's imagination, which was clearly running wild with her. "Think nothing of it. Now, sleep. I will be in after I have had a chance to wash."

Solona nodded, getting to her bedroll on her own power before collapsing, quickly falling asleep without bothering to remove even her boots. Dreams of creamy white skin against her own, and reddish tresses tickling her face, kept her company the entire night.

* * *

Solona awoke to the sunrise. She stretched, smiling at feeling well rested for the first time since leaving the Tower with Duncan more than a month before. Her smile faltered when she remembered that she was supposed to be on watch. She hurriedly tugged on her boots, wondering how they'd made it off her feet in the first place, and practically ran from the tent.

Leliana's gaze moved to the mage almost the moment Solona burst forth, gracing her with a warm smile. She sat leaning against Max, one leg in the air, crossed over the other knee, her hands tucked under her arms. She'd acquired some sturdy leather armor for herself from a travelling merchant the day before, and looked the part of the dangerous huntress in it. She wasn't wearing it at the moment, however. She and Alistair chose not to don their armor just for the watch – they could defend themselves well enough, and wearing armor while sitting around was less than comfortable. Sten didn't even have any armor yet – his size and unique shape made armoring him somewhat of a challenge thus far.

Solona walked right up to her, crossing her arms under her breasts and quirking an eyebrow. "Lost track of time?"

Leliana laughed, a sweet, genuine sound that Solona would take over sweets if the choice were ever forced upon her. "I chose to stay out here and watch the sun rise. Besides," she added with a wink, " _someone_  refused to wake when I went to rouse her."

Solona groaned. "I'm sorry. I-"

Leliana held up a hand to stop her. "It is quite alright. I enjoyed the sunrise. And Max came to keep me company when you would not wake last night. So no harm done." She reached up her hand, and Solona took it, pulling a little too hard and overbalancing the Orlesian.

Which shot Leliana straight into her arms.

Leliana looked up through pale auburn lashes as she leaned into Solona, her blue eyes now much paler in the dawn light than they were the night before. Once again, Solona found herself at a loss for words, simply staring into those eyes as she held fast around Leliana's middle. The feel of the woman's body against her own made her knees weak. The way Leliana had to look up at the mage made her feel unreasonably protective, given that Leliana could clearly take care of herself. The look in her eyes made Solona feel… well, like dragging the redhead back into the tent and stripping all her clothes off.

After a moment, she was able to get a handle on the strange emotions surging through her, setting Leliana on her feet, taking a step back, and clearing her throat.

"Sorry. I suppose I don't know my own strength."

Leliana smiled, placing one hand on Solona's forearm. "I do not mind. Sometimes it is good to surprise yourself and others with your strength, yes? What people do not expect can be their undoing,  _non_?"

Solona nodded. "Perhaps. But do not get me off-topic. I was apologizing for you taking my entire watch."

"As I said, there is nothing to apologize for." She removed her hand and turned to pick up her bow, which had been strung and seated beside her. "I did not mind in the least."

Solona sighed. "Very well. But at least let me make you breakfast. It's the least I can do. And unlike Alistair,  _I_  can cook."

Leliana smiled. "That sounds wonderful."

* * *

An hour later, they were packing up the last of their belongings while Alistair hitched up the donkey. They set out at a brisk pace, hoping to cover quite a bit of ground before they stopped for their midday meal.

It was several hours into their walk when Sten suddenly made an appearance. Over the last few days, he had taken up position at the front, moving away briskly if someone tried to engage him in conversation. But now he sought it out, making a statement that left Solona and Leliana – who had been walking together, idly chatting from time to time – blinking in confusion.

"I don't understand. You look like women."

Solona recovered first. "I'm not sure I follow. We  _are_  women. What's not to understand?"

He directed his next statement to her alone. "You are a Grey Warden, so it follows that you  _can't_  be a woman."

Leliana answered him this time. "That doesn't make any sense, Sten." She traded a look of utter bafflement with Solona.

"So you understand my confusion, then."

"Not precisely, no.," Leliana said, shaking her head. "What are you confused about?"

"Yes," Solona joined in, "what  _exactly_  is it that you find so difficult to understand?"

"Women are priests, artisans, shopkeepers, or farmers. They don't fight." His expression remained unchanged from the one he always wore, but his hands moved in a way to augment his gravelly tone. It was strange to see in a man so large.

Leliana's brow furrowed. "That's not a universal truth. Some women fight."

"Why would women ever wish to be men? That makes no sense."

Solona shared another look with Leliana, rolling her eyes slightly. It was as she suspected when he started his line of questioning – his definitions of men and women were even more rigid in his culture than her own. "They don't wish to be men, Sten. They wish to be women who fight."

"Do they also wish to live on the moon? It is as attainable."

Leliana tried valiantly not to laugh, but a snort did escape before she excused herself, falling behind to cough and laugh. Solona just shook her head, an amused smile on her face. "We're talking in circles, here."

He considered her. "I don't know what to make of you. Perhaps this is a quality of Grey Wardens I had not heard about. A person is born, qunari or human, elven or dwarf. He doesn't choose that. The size of his hands, whether he is clever or foolish, the land he comes from, the color of his hair; these are beyond his control. We do not choose, we simply  _are_."

She pondered his words a moment. "It's true, we do not choose these things. But we  _can_  choose what we  _do_."

"Can we?" He made a low rumble in his throat. "We shall see." And without a word he moved away, retaking his indomitable position at the front of the party, Max mysteriously at his side. Solona just stared, flabbergasted, until Leliana rejoined her.

"Well,  _that_  was enlightening. I'm not sure I've heard him speak so much since, well…  _ever_."

Solona snorted. "Yes, he certainly was talkative, wasn't he?" For some reason that neither could identify, Leliana started laughing, which prompted Solona to start, and within a few seconds, they had to stop moving, they were laughing so hard.

"I will never understand women's need for gossip," Morrigan commented, passing them by with a sneer, leaving only Alistair behind them with the cart.

This caused them to laugh all the harder, having to run to catch up with the group several minutes later.

* * *

"I have been thinking about Morrigan's recommendations," Leliana said out of the blue. They were seated around the campfire, eating the much-better meal Leliana had made for them.

Solona looked up from where she was attempting to eat her food with some semblance of manners. Ever since becoming a Grey Warden, it was like the food dissipated before it even hit the bottom of her stomach. "What recommendations?"

"About non-magical combat. You should learn hand-to-hand combat."

Solona raised her brows. "Oh?"

"Yes. You and Alistair both, in fact." Alistair looked up at the mention of his name, his eyebrows also trying to meet with his hairline. "I have seen you spar with Sten, Alistair. You do well enough, but you would do better if you could get closer to your opponent."

"It is true," Sten rumbled. "The larger your opponent, the less likely you are to overpower him. In that case, your strategy should be to get inside of his reach and incapacitate him."

"What do you mean, like, hit him in the head with my pommel?" Alistair suggested.

Leliana shook her head. "No. I am talking about…" She tilted her head and regarded the Qunari. "Sten, would you mind helping me to show them?"

He regarded her, standing after a moment. "Yes. I will make sure not to cause permanent damage."

Leliana smirked as she, too, stood. "I am not worried. Your level of control is almost scary, my large friend."

"Wait," Solona said, eyes wide as she realized what they were going to do. "Surely you're not going to spar with a  _qunari_? His greatsword would take care of your daggers in a heartbeat!"

"No, we will not be using weapons," Leliana clarified, moving to a clear space on the other side of the fire, Sten following her. "And it is only to demonstrate."

Solona was unconvinced, but the minstrel's display at the tavern in Lothering made her hold her tongue. She watched as the giant qunari warrior and the tiny human woman squared off, both offering a slight bow to the other before dropping into a combat stance.

Sten lunged, grabbing Leliana by each shoulder. Solona and Alistair both stood in surprise, a cry of alarm ready to leave Solona's lips. But instead, it was a sound of surprise, as Leliana simply slipped from the giant's grasp, falling straight down through his hands and rolling on the ground, popping up with only a few hairs out of place. As Sten turned, she stepped in very close, sweeping a foot behind his background foot as she placed both hands on his muscled chest. As the foot came back toward her, stumbling the giant, she threw herself forward, overbalancing the warrior and knocking him on his back. She followed through with her momentum and was on top of his chest in a heartbeat, a thin, elegantly curved dagger appearing at his throat from thin air.

She wasn't even winded as she smiled, a glint in her eye. "You see? You do not need to overpower your opponent. Overbalancing them and taking advantage of their distraction can save you." She got up off of the warrior, the dagger vanishing into a sheath hidden in her gauntlet. She held out a hand to help the qunari to his feet, but he just grunted, getting up on his own power. She shrugged and turned to her audience.

"So, you see now what I mean?"

Solona nodded slowly. "That was… incredible. You could have killed him, and not even been winded."

Alistair laughed. "How do you feel, being bested by a  _girl_ , Sten?"

Sten grunted, his eyes narrowing at Alistair. "She fights well, and intelligently. But I still do not understand how she is a woman and a warrior…" He moved off, calling Max to him with a whistle as he stomped off into the woods, for what purpose none of them would ever know. Solona couldn't figure out why Sten seemed to prefer Max's company.

"Come," Leliana said, gaining both wardens' attention once more. " _Engarde_."

They looked at each other, identical expressions of uncertainty on their faces.

Alistair spoke first. "Which one of us?"

Leliana smirked. " _Both_  of you."

"Both of us? Isn't that a little… unfair?"

Leliana rolled her eyes, folding her arms over her chest and cocking a hip. "For  _you_ , perhaps. I just took down Sten, after all. Now, come. I do not mind teaching you both. Simultaneously." She went back into her combat stance. " _Maintenant_ _. Venez._ "

Ten minutes later, Solona could feel a collection of bruises forming all down her back and on her rump. Given the number of times Alistair had met the ground, he was probably in about the same shape. She looked over at him, both of them reluctant to get up again, just to be delivered back to the ground.

"What do you say we just get her drunk? Make it'd be a fairer fight for us?"

Leliana giggled. "I assure you I can fight almost as well while inebriated as I can while sober." She stooped, offering Alistair her hand. He eyed her warily; she had grabbed his hand only to throw him back onto the ground only a few minutes before.

"No thanks, I'll just get up when you're not so close to me," he said, making no move to take the offered hand.

Leliana giggled again. "Suit yourself. Solona?" She turned, offering her hand to the mage.

Solona cocked a brow, reaching for her, knowing she was taking a risk. As she felt Leliana begin to pull her up, she pulled back, overbalancing the smaller woman, pulling her down. She landed atop the mage, catching herself on Solona's chest. Solona caught each of Leliana's wrists and twisted, ending up with Leliana beneath her, her wrists pinned above her head.

"Ha!" she shouted, looking down into Leliana's face with a triumphant smirk. "I caught you!"

Leliana's look could only be called demure. "Indeed, you have, my warden." The redhead fluttered her lashes coyly, causing Solona's gut to clench. She hurriedly let go of Leliana's wrists, ready to mumble an apology, when the world turned upside down. Leliana, having wrapped her legs around Solona's waist, flipped them once more, and then Solona found the same dagger as before appear at her own throat. It was an effective way of taking her attention away from the feel of Leliana's hips straddling her own.

"As you can see, there are many tricks beyond getting physically close to trick  _larger_   _opponents_  into dropping their guard." The Orlesian smirked, sheathing her dagger and sitting back, still straddling the mage's hips.

Solona raised a brow, still very aware of Leliana's heat pressed so close to her. "Are you calling me fat?"

Leliana blinked for a moment, then threw her head back in laughter. She was cut off in a yelp of surprise, however, as Alistair snuck up behind her and grabbed her around the middle, hauling her off of Solona with a triumphant shout.

"Alistair, put me down!" Leliana kicked backward, hitting his shin. He cried out in pain, loosening his hold enough for her to twist out of his grip, sweeping her foot behind his feet and sending him to the ground, all in one fluid motion.

"One day, you two will be able to gang up on me. Until then, you can get  _yourselves_  up off the ground."

Alistair groaned as she walked away. Solona, entranced by the sway of the minstrel's hips, didn't notice Alistair wriggle closer on the ground.

"When did such a little person learn how to pack such a wallop? And how did a  _minstrel_  learn to fight like that?"

Solona turned to look at him, a smirk on her face. "She doesn't pack a wallop. You're just a big baby."

"Oh, ha ha, funny. You're lucky I'm so covered in bruises, or I would come over there and… and…"

Solona snorted, heaving herself from the ground and heading for the fire once more, Alistair's voice trailing after her.

"Oh, don't mind me. I think I'll just sleep  _here_  tonight. It'll be easier, in the long run…"

* * *

The ambush came three days later.

Solona was walking at the head of the group with Morrigan, talking about some of the things she had done wrong the night before during their magical sparring session. They stopped when they saw a woman running toward them some distance off. When the woman saw them, she began screaming and waving her arms. The two mages traded a look, Morrigan rolling her eyes as Solona started walking once more to meet the hysterical woman.

"Please, please, my cart is stuck, and I can't fix it myself! My child is sick, and it's just the two of us. We've been stranded for days, and we're running out of food!" As Solona drew near, the woman stumbled, Solona catching her before she could fall to the ground.

"Calm down, it's going to be fine. You go back to him and tell him help is on the way. We just need to wait for the rest of our companions." The woman nodded, wearing a hopeful expression as she turned to shuffle back the way she'd come.

"You actually intend to help this woman?"

"Please, Morrigan, do give me some credit. If she's telling the truth, we can spare the time. If she's lying, which I suspect, then we'll take care of it."

"If she is lying, then why not avoid the trap in the first place?"

"There's nowhere else to go," Solona said with a sigh. "We're in a damn ravine, Morrigan. We could backtrack and go around, and spend an extra week walking along the rocks with the wagon. Or we could just see what this is. I'm confident in this group's abilities."

Morrigan considered her for a moment, eyes narrowed. "Very well. You are the leader of this venture, after all." There was only a hint of sarcasm in her tone.

A minute or two later, the rest of the party caught up to them. "What's going on?" Alistair walked up with concern in his eyes. She'd never had a chance to apologize for snapping at him back in Lothering, but their sparring sessions seemed to be doing a lot to get them on friendlier terms.

"A woman with a downed cart ahead. I told her we'd be along shortly to help."

"Oh, dear," lamented Leliana, eyes immediately turning down in concern. "What are we waiting for?"

"Something rubs me the wrong way," Solona replied, moving to lean against the cart now that it was close. "She said that she's been stranded for days with a sick child, but she came running around the bend as if something just happened. I don't want to abandon them if they really  _are_ in trouble, and I also don't want to find a way around this band of hills. They blasted this road through for a reason – it's almost impossible to pass through the hills otherwise."

Sten's rumbling voice answered her. "If she is lying, we will just kill her."

"It's not that simple, Sten," Leliana replied calmly, like patiently explaining something to a child. "Bandits often prey on people like her, out alone travelling. They hold her children captive and force her to hail passing parties so they can ambush. And if she  _is_  telling the truth, then we cannot simply stand by and let them perish."

"Well, I think the best we can do is leave the cart back here and be on our guard," Alistair said, loosening his sword in it's scabbard and rummaging his helm from the cart. It was starting to get too warm to wear it all the time.

When they rounded the corner, her gut feeling of  _wrong_  just got worse. The wagon was there, missing a wheel, the woman seemingly talking to someone inside the covered portion. There was nothing there to suggest that she'd been lying, and yet you simply did not come running at such a convenient time when you've been stranded for days. It did not add up.

Solona took one more step forward, and it was one step too many. She felt something pull at her ankle, and then the world was fire.

Time stopped for a moment, an eternity stretching out as she fell forward. Her skin crisped, her flesh seared, and in desperation she cast about for some escape from the pain. In her mind's eye she saw a path before her, and in her misery she fled, finding at the end a wellspring of power. She reached out to take it, and in that moment, time sped back up.

Solona stood, feeling the power coursing through her, healing the paltry wounds she had sustained. Taking in the scene before her, she narrowed in on her enemies, her vision tunneling to the scene of the battle. With a speed she never would have known she possessed, she sprinted to where the fighting was thickest. Drawing on the well of power she had found, the mage pushed a wall of force in a circle around her, felling eight grown men. As they began to right themselves, she drew her staff and used it to focus the power coursing through her, directing a ball of fire at the chest of the first man to gain his feet.

He burned to a crisp within the span of five seconds.

She barely spared him a glance before she was moving again, jerking Alistair to his feet after jutting a man in the forehead with the butt of her staff, caving in his skull. Alistair gaped for a moment before pulling himself together, pulling his shortbow to help Leliana deal with the archers above them. Solona pushed away from him with a grin, looking for her next foe, ready to do more damage.

When she turned, she was suddenly faced with a dangerous opponent, a blonde elf with a facial tattoo similar to her own. She squared off with him, their steps mirroring each other's, much as she and Morrigan when they sparred. Solona studied him as she paced, sizing him up as he did likewise. He had a long, elegantly curved dirk in each hand, leather armor of expensive make, and boots that were worth more than all the clothes on her own body combined. His smirk made her curious, but she did not have a chance to ask him about his attitude. She could only react, leaping to her right as he suddenly lashed out with one of the long daggers.

The power coursing through her would not wait, was not cautious. She thrust forward a fist as he recovered, and he was knocked to the ground from the invisible force she'd sent his way. He rolled with the motion, springing up to his feet not even a second after hitting the ground. Solona narrowed her eyes, bringing up her staff and slamming it into the ground. A shockwave left it, travelling along the ground and knocking him down once more. And once more he rolled, this time backward, skipping back a few steps to put some distance between them once he had regained his feet. Settling back into a battle stance, he grinned and bowed with a flourish.

Solona found herself grinning right back, eager for the fight.

In the blink of an eye, he flipped one of his dirks and sent it spinning in her direction. Without thinking, she caught it, not able to spare the time to wonder at how she'd done it. Instead, she tossed it back at him, using it as a conduit for the well of power she'd called upon when the trap had been sprung. It hit him faster than it should have, in the shoulder, slicing through his armor as if it were butter. Blasts of heat and flame emanated from it, sending him to the ground with grunts and gasps of pain. He managed to grip the blade and remove it, but another wave of force from Solona hit his head upon a rock. The dagger fell from limp fingers as he lost consciousness.

Solona looked for her next enemy, but there were none. Along with the realization, she felt the well begin to close off, her vision expanding as the source of her power narrowed, pushing her back along the path down which she had initially fled, away from that well of magic. She watched as Sten thrust his sword into the last bandit standing, saw Leliana speaking with Alistair up on the ledge where the archers had been, and observed with some detachment as Morrigan wiped some blood from her lip. Max trotted up to the mage-warden, his muzzle dripping blood as he happily barked. They had won, with no injuries. She smiled and bent to pet the happy dog.

Before she could touch him, however, she swayed sideways, and then the world went black.

* * *

Solona awoke slowly, awareness coming in increments. First, she noted that what she was sensing had a great deal more reality to it than before.  _I must have been dreaming. When did I fall asleep?_

Then, she noted that her clothes had been stripped.  _Okay, I definitely don't remember doing that…_

And then her memories came to her, like curtains being peeled back from a window. The ambush, the trap she'd triggered, the impressive fighting she'd done and the strange way her awareness had become distorted. The elven assassin who would have skewered her had it not been for her  _catching a blade in midair_. She didn't know how she'd done it, nor how she'd somehow set the blade on fire before sending it back at him at impossible speeds. She remembered doing it, though, remembered the rush of the magic, the satisfaction of the blade sinking into the assassin's flesh. And how, when the source of that magic closed off, her energy had left her, and the world had faded to black.

She finally opened her eyes. She was in the tent she shared with Leliana. It was dark out, but she could see the light cast by the fire on the walls of the canvas. She lifted the blanket an inch or two to find that she was, indeed, naked except for her smallclothes, even her breasts allowed freedom. She replaced the blanket, looking around to find the tent empty. Reasonably assured of some privacy, she got out from under the blanket to look for some clothes.

She really didn't know what to think of what had happened. Her display of power resembled descriptions of blood magic, or maybe possession by a demon. But she was herself, and she retained her memory of what happened while drawing on that incredible well of power. She had no memory of battling with a demon during the battle, and she knew what it was to battle one, at least in the Fade. In addition, she was sure she'd know if she had drawn power from either her own blood or someone else's. So what the hell had happened?

And, for that matter, how long ago had it happened? How long had she been out? She was ravenous, but that wasn't much to go on – it seemed like she was ravenous all the time. It could have been just half a day, or it could have been more. Maybe she'd been stripped because she had soiled herself in her unconsciousness? No, then they would have stripped her down completely. Speaking of which, in addition to being ravenous, she desperately needed to make a trip into the woods to relieve herself.  _Okay, so it's probably only been the afternoon, if you're still holding it. That's not so bad_.

Dressing in hose and a loose shirt, Solona rushed out of the tent without even pulling on her boots. She barely noticed Leliana at the fire, alone except for Max, sitting up and exclaiming in surprise when Solona suddenly appeared. She ran passed the redhead for the privacy of the woods, tossing off a "just a minute" as she made for the tree line. When she came back, Leliana was standing, a look of concern on her face.

"Are you alright?"

Solona smiled. "Yes, but I'm starving. Is there anything left to eat?"

Leliana looked dubious. "I'm not sure you should eat Alistair's cooking so soon after emptying your stomach…"

"Oh! No, my stomach is fine. I just had to, well, use the latrine."

"Oh. Well." Leliana appeared flustered. She cast about, looking everywhere but at Solona. The warden wasn't sure what to make of it, but was spared having to make awkward conversation when Leliana began rummaging through their supplies, producing a wineskin, loaf of hard bread, and a bit of hard cheese. "I can make you something else if you like, but this is what's available  _maintenant_."

Solona's lips quirked up at Leliana's brief use of her mother tongue. She was only familiar with it in its written form, and to hear it not being butchered by those studying it in the Tower was refreshing. "This is fine, Leliana, thank you. I'll just put on my boots first." She took the offered items with a smile when she returned from their tent, sitting down on the ground next to Max and feeding him a small piece of the hard bread before patting his head. His pleased grunt made her chuckle.

As she ate, she could feel Leliana's gaze on her. She tried to slow down, as she was eating pretty much like the dog did, but she was so damn hungry. The Orlesian could judge if she wanted – at the moment, Solona didn't care overly much.

It was another minute or two before Leliana finally spoke up. "You scared us today."

Solona looked up at her, taking a drink of wine to replace a reply. She wasn't quite sure hot to respond to that.

Leliana continued after a moment. "Alistair is worried. Morrigan says she's never seen anything like what you did." Her brows furrowed further. "Sten was convinced you had a demon inside of you, and tried to kill you."

Solona just blinked. "He tried to  _kill_  me?" Leliana nodded, the concerned look remaining on her face. "Well. I'm glad to see you didn't let him."

"It is no laughing matter, Solona." Leliana's tone had turned slightly angry, almost hurt. "No one knew what you had done. And you lost consciousness immediately after the fight." Her voice got very quiet. "I thought I-  _we_  had lost you."

Leliana seemed very upset. More than she should be, at least as far as Solona could judge such things. "I'm sorry for scaring you, Leliana. I'm not quite sure what happened, myself. It was very different from usual."

"How so?"

"I don't really know how to explain it. It was like…"  _Sex. Maybe._  "It was like an endless source of power just opened up to me. That's not what my magic is usually like. And when it was over, I felt… utterly drained."

"I see. Well, I am perhaps not the best person to discuss it with." Leliana shifted, looking uncomfortable. "Morrigan has the next watch. Perhaps we should wait until she is here? I am sure her input would be more useful than my own." She was still speaking very quietly.

"Perhaps. But let's not wake her just yet." Solona looked down at her food, her voice dropping in pitch and volume. "I enjoy your company far more than hers."

"That's sweet," Leliana replied, her voice gaining a bit more of its usual buoyancy. Solona looked back up to see her smiling in a very odd way, a look on her face the mage couldn't quite place.  _Is that… affection?_

Solona spoke first after a short period that threatened to become awkward. "So… did I miss anything? Besides being undressed. What was that about, anyway?"

Leliana colored slightly. "Your body healed after you were burned, but most of the clothing you wore was charred beyond repair. The only things that were still wearable were your vest and boots. It… seemed silly to put you to bed in just your vest, so I took the liberty of removing that and washing it for you. I… apologize, if this was too much an intrusion into your privacy. I did not think you would appreciate anyone else who might have wished the chore to perform it."

Solona snorted. "That's for damn sure." She smiled at Leliana. "Thank you. You're right, I wouldn't appreciate Alistair or Sten undressing me. Or Morrigan, for that matter." The thought of Leliana handling her while in such a state of undress made her skin flush very hot. It also made her wonder just how strong the woman was. Solona was much bigger than Leliana, who looked almost delicate despite her wicked skill with a longbow – how on earth did she manage to manipulate someone so much larger than herself?

"You do not mind that I took such liberty with you?" Leliana's words were serious, but her tone was almost playful, and when Solona looked back in her direction, she saw that Leliana had a smirk on her face.

Solona grinned. "I think I will survive, fair Lady." She winked and added, "I might just have to swoon more often, if that is the treatment I receive every time."

She was gratified to see Leliana blush furiously. It also confused her. Leliana seemed like the kind of woman who was familiar with romantic interest – you couldn't be  _that_  beautiful and not have to beat men off with a stick. Perhaps it was just that Solona was another woman? Or perhaps she was just horribly obvious in her flirtations, and Leliana wasn't sure how to let the mage down gently? Solona silently cursed her lack of experience.

Leliana relieved the awkwardness by retrieving another wineskin and moving to sit on the ground next to Solona, leaning back against the same log. She took a delicate sip before offering it to the mage, who accepted the offer. A pleasant warm feeling was settling into her body, her head swimming just slightly.

After a time, she broke their pleasantly buzzed silence. "So, did I miss anything else?"

Leliana smiled wryly. "Yes, as a matter of fact. Your assassin survived, and we decided to let him travel with us."

"You  _what_?!"

Leliana chuckled. "Yes. He is an Antivan Crow, hired by Loghain, I might add. As he failed to kill you and Alistair, his life is forfeit should he ever show his face in his country again. As an Antivan, even as an assassin, he has a high degree of honor, and has pledged his service to you and Alistair until such time as we deem it no longer necessary."

"And Alistair  _accepted_?"

Leliana nodded. "The assassin has no weapons until such time as we decide he can be trusted, and he is still quite impeded by the injuries you gave him. He has already proven himself somewhat, however, by helping me to take care of you while you were unconscious."

"Huh."

"Yes, it was odd. He then took over care of the cart and donkey without being prompted, and collected firewood – as best he could with one arm in a sling – and took the first watch with Sten once we found a good place to rest for the rest of the day. So I am inclined to believe his story that he was unhappy as an assassin, and wishes a different life. It certainly matches what I know of the Crows."

"Odd." Solona shrugged, feeling that her drink was showing but not particularly caring. "I suppose if we're careful, there's no reason to kill him." She smiled ruefully. "I mean, at this point, Morrigan and Sten have both tried to kill me. And had things gone differently, and Alistair become a templar, then he would have, as well. It's not like this assassin is any worse than the rest of our companions on that front."

Leliana actually laughed. "You have a point!" Her brows knit, a look that Solona found terribly adorable. "And he is very… interesting to speak with. Utterly incorrigible when it comes to potential bed partners, though. At my last count, he had propositioned me, Morrigan,  _and_  Alistair an even five times, and we've only known him half a day!"

Solona's eyes got wide. He had propositioned  _Alistair_? "I bet our fair templar took  _that_  well…"

"Indeed," Leliana said sagely, "if blushing and stammering before walking away counts as 'well.'"

They both laughed at this, falling into an easy rhythm of conversation for the rest of the night.

While they spoke, Solona kept sneaking furtive looks at Leliana, appreciating the way the firelight landed upon her face. She was feeling a bit cold in the spring night air, but was loathe to interrupt the ease that had settled over them. So she stayed up, and the two finished the watch together, losing track of time, talking until the sunrise made it clear they had stayed too long, having failed to awaken Morrigan for her watch. Neither seemed to care very much, however, and they rose to wake their party only reluctantly, not eager to leave the other's company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diablo_Kades (my beta) is awesome. That is all.


	5. The Road To Lake Calenhad

"There is no reason you should not be able to access this power at will."

Solona rolled her eyes and said, for what felt like the hundredth time, "And yet, I cannot."

Morrigan narrowed her eyes. "What was it, exactly, that opened this 'path,' as you call it?"

Solona sighed. "I don't know. I hit that trap, and I felt my skin burning, and then there was the power. It healed me as it flowed through me, and it enabled me to cast spells without words. It completely got rid of the need to incant."

"There is  _always_  the need to incant. Incanting is the  _only_  way to focus raw magic, to refine it; unless, of course, you are using blood magic, or a spirit is using your body as a vessel."

Solona shook her head. "No, that is not what this was. It was like the power was responding directly to my wishes. I never understood it quite like this before, but incanting is… an intermediary, a catalyst to make bending the power to our will easier. It is a useful tool for forcing our focus so we do not make some terrible mistake."

"And you are saying that you were able to bend the magic to your will without directing it with words?"

Solona nodded emphatically. "Yes. That is exactly what happened. I would have always said you were right, about focusing the raw magic. But it simply responded to my wishes directly. There was no need to focus or refine it. I pictured flame, and flame is what happened."

Morrigan opened her mouth to speak, but seemed to think better of it, falling silent as she walked beside the mage Warden. Solona gave her a sidelong glance, wondering what was churning around behind those yellow, cat-like eyes.

Finally, Morrigan spoke again. "So you were able to direct the magic with your mind. Were you incanting silently?"

Solona shook her head emphatically. "No. I was looking back on it last night, and it wasn't even that. I pictured what I wanted to happen, and I could direct the power to do it. There was no step of deciding  _how_  to make the magic do what I wanted."

"That is…" Morrigan's eyes narrowed again. "Actually, I may have heard of something like this. My mother, in one of her many lessons, spoke of the Tevinter mages receiving blood magic from demons in  _reaction_  to more powerful mages' magic."

A flash of recognition came to Solona. "I think I may have read something about that, as well. But it is…" She thought for a moment, finally making a sound of frustration when the memories just wouldn't come to her. "It is out of reach. I need to think on it, see if I can remember what it was I read. It was something about battle magic, before the Chantry came to be."

"Perhaps you can get the book again when we visit the Tower? Perhaps we should go there first?"

"That's… a good idea, actually." Solona looked around for Alistair. "It would require a change of direction. I believe we're almost to Redcliffe…"

"I believe 'twould be worth the time – if it happens again, we should know something about it."

"I agree. Though I have no desire to be back at the Circle so soon."

Morrigan was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, she sounded thoughtful. "When I first met you, I assumed you were a puppet of the Circle. Mother never told me what the mark on your visage meant. I did not know you escaped, that you loathed the Circle, perhaps more than I do."

Solona snorted. " _Attempted_  escape. I was not successful in staying away."

"Yes. You sought out your parents, and they turned you in to the templars, correct?" Solona nodded in affirmation. In response, Morrigan's eyes hardened. "They are nothing. Simple-minded fools; sheep of the Chantry. You are  _better_  than they are. Go. Speak to Alistair. The Circle cannot take you again – you should not fear going there."

Morrigan moved away, leaving a very quiet Solona to contemplate her words.

* * *

Solona ate her hard bread and cheese with reluctance as she walked. As much as she did not miss the Circle, she  _did_  miss eating cooked meals. Leliana had emerged from the woods not long ago with three hares hanging from her belt, at least, meaning they would be having a meal of substance that night.

She sighed. She'd been in a somber mood ever since her conversation with Morrigan. She didn't know what was happening to her, and was not happy that their only way to find out involved travelling to the place that had been her only home, and her prison. Thoughts of templars and Irving's disappointed face haunted her.

A creaking of leather shook her from her reverie. She looked around to see the assassin walking not far behind her. She hadn't had a chance to speak with him yet, taking Leliana's word that it was a good idea to have him along. It bothered her less than she thought it should, to have her would-be assassin with them. Perhaps because it was Loghain who wanted her dead, not the blonde elven man she was looking at. He had simply accepted gold, using his skills to perform a service. A service that she had halted, causing an abrupt shift in his loyalties, apparently.

But perhaps taking Leliana's word for it wasn't enough. Perhaps she should speak with him, decide for herself.

"What was your name?"

The elf's gaze shifted to her as she dropped back to walk beside him. He led the donkey and cart with one hand, the other stuck in a simple sling while the wound to his shoulder healed.

"I wondered when you would speak to me, Warden. My name is Zevran Arainai, of Antiva." The elf had an interesting lilt to his voice. As she'd never actually heard an Antivan accent before, due to her rather sheltered upbringing in the Circle, she could only assume this was it.

"I am Solona. I would say, 'pleased to meet you,' but given the nature of our first introduction…"

Zevran chuckled. "Yes, I find that I, too, am less inclined to look favorably upon a man who has tried to kill me. We differ in that regard, however, in that you never did anything to make me want to kill you, which is not true of myself and the men who have tried to kill me."

Solona was confused. "I'm not sure I follow. Who has tried to kill you?"

"Jealous husbands, usually. Sometimes angry fathers."

It took Solona a moment to understand what he was getting at, but when she did, she chuckled. He graced her with a smile and continued. "In any event, you did not ask if I was a heartbreaker. I imagine you want to know some about me? If I will try to kill you once again?"

Solona was taken aback by the way he refused to dance around the subject. "Wouldn't you wish to know?"

He nodded, his eyes twinkling. "Indeed. Well, you should know that I never felt much loyalty to the Crows. They raised me, it is true, fed me, and clothed me. In return, I killed for them. Truth to tell, Warden, I tire of killing simply because I am good at it."

Solona was quiet for a moment before responding. "That certainly  _sounds_  good. But what is to stop you from feeding me that story and then stabbing me in my sleep?"

Zevran grinned, showing a perfect line of white teeth. "Nothing."

It was so brazen a response, Solona couldn't help snorting a laugh.

"In fact,  _señorita_ , the Crows only ever bought my loyalty. They never earned it. My respect, they have. I  _respect_  that they will kill me because I failed to kill you. If I kill you later, they will still kill me for not succeeding in the first place."

"Okay… But what is to stop you from slitting our throats and making a bid for freedom?"

Zevran had an answer for her right away. "And spoil the opportunity to bed so many lovely, interesting people?"

Solona cocked a single brow. "You think you will be bedding me after attempting to kill me?"

"What can I say? I am an eternal optimist." He flashed another confident grin, adjusting the grip of the donkey's rope in his hand. "In truth, Warden, I know enough to know that there is nothing I can say to convince you of my motives. I can show you, earn your trust. I can serve you in whatever manner you need. I was raised by the Crows and know nothing else. I would like to know what life outside of that web of lies and deceit is like."

"I suppose I can see that. So start showing me. Tell me something about yourself. Your past. How did you join the Crows?"

Zevran smiled. "I was purchased from a whorehouse in Antiva for the very good price of three golden sovereigns."

"So precise a number! And how much were you paid to kill me?"

" _I_  was not paid anything. The Crows were paid, and I performed – or didn't, in this case – the service. I would not have seen anything more than usual for this job."

"I see. So, a whorehouse…"

Zevran nodded. "Yes. My mother was stuck with my father's debt after he died, and having no other skills for the city, she was forced to prostitution. She died giving birth to me, and I, like many other children, was raised by a community of prostitutes."

"I… am sorry."

Zevran shrugged. "I did not know her. I doubt my father was truly even my father. Far more likely is that I was fathered by an elven lover she took while married to her husband. I know that I am not half-human, or I would suspect one of her clients. In any event, my childhood was good, for what it was. And when the Crows bought me, they made me strong, and skilled, and cunning. I resisted at first, but in the end, I found I had a certain talent for the things they wanted me to do. It does feel good be good at something."

Solona considered what he had said. In some ways, their childhoods were similar. Not completely, of course, but she, too, had been taken from her home and raised by a faceless organization that wanted her to use her talents in a certain way. He had a great deal more freedom in it, but she, at least, had not been raised by whores and then murderers.  _Just caged powerhouses who were too scared of their own power to realize they could be free of their shackles in the space of a heartbeat._

"What about you, Warden? I confess, I have never had the chance to spend so much time with a mage, and now I find myself in the company of two.  _And_  you are both beautiful examples of the female species. It is almost too good to be true!"

Solona scowled. "You are truly mistaken if you think you can get either of us into your bed, Zevran."

"Oh? You do not even know me; how can you be so certain?"

Solona rolled her eyes. "Even had you not tried to kill me yesterday, I would still not be interested, as you are… decidedly  _not_  a woman. And Morrigan… well, honestly, I am surprised she hasn't yet set your hair on fire. I would be careful around her."

His face took on a sly look. "But what about the Orlesian? She is a fine woman, if I have ever seen one."

Solona's scowl turned into a full-on frown. "You should stay away from her."

She walked off without another word, completely unaware of the knowing smile on Zevran's lips.

* * *

"Are you going to let your hair grow back out?" Leliana ran her fingers through the soft, inch-and-a-half-long strands of Solona's hair.

The mage hummed in approval. "No. I don't think I will. I was never particularly fond of my hair when it was long, and I've really enjoyed the convenience of it short." She opened her eyes, looking up from where she sat on the ground between Leliana's knees. Her light grey eyes were so captivating, holding an open, honest look that just made Leliana want to cradle her close and protect her from all that would seek to take advantage of her youth and inexperience. "I suppose it would help hide the tattoo on my face, but I highly doubt a head  _full_  of white hair would be any less visible that the tattoo. And, well… It almost feels like I'd be letting them win, like I'd be covering it up in  _shame_." She closed her eyes again as Leliana's fingers drifted through her hair once more.

"I think I know what you mean. You would be taking ownership of something meant to shame you? Almost like using it against them?"

Solona hummed once more. "Yes, that sounds right. I haven't really had a reason to articulate it before…" The mage trailed off as Leliana used her nails on the woman's scalp, prompting a groan of pleasure to escape her. A shiver ran up the Orlesian's spine at the sound.

They sat together at watch, far from the fire. They had acquired enough members to their party to justify taking the watch in pairs. A paired watch was safer for two very important reasons: one, the pair stood a better chance of defending the camp in the event of an attack, and, two, the pair was able to keep each other awake. Leliana and Solona had drawn their watch together. Leliana couldn't quite remember how they got in this particular configuration, aside from the fact that she was a woman who enjoyed playing with hair. Solona certainly wasn't complaining, though, and she was having a hard time making herself stop the innocent enough gesture, even if it  _felt_  overly familiar and flirtatious.

She looked down, playing further with the mage's hair. "Well, you'll need to get it cut on a regular basis then, yes? Walking around with a shaggy mane of hair is far from stylish. I could do it for you, if you like."

"You can cut hair?"

"Yes. It is a skill I acquired when I was young – Lady Cecilie only liked people she  _knew_  touching her so intimately, you see. So she had me taught."

"That was the noblewoman who raised you?"

"Yes, she is the woman my mother served."

"Wait, why were you a minstrel if you were the ward of a noble?"

 _Merde. Think fast, Leliana._  She settled on a variation of the truth. "I sought a more exciting life. The life of a noblewoman is only so interesting, you see. I travelled far more, and saw far more, as a minstrel than I ever did as a glorified servant. Lady Cecilie passed when I was on the cusp of my adulthood, so my future was my own, with no one to condemn my choice." Flimsy at best, but it would have to do. "Anyway, would you like me to cut your hair for you?"

Solona nodded thoughtfully. "I would like that. I like the idea of it having some kind of style. 'Head shaved bald and has now grown out' isn't much of a fashion-statement, I'm afraid."

Leliana giggled. "This is true. Well, it does make a statement, but perhaps not one you want to make."

Solona pulled away a little, twisting to look at Leliana. "Maybe when we get to the lake? There's an inn that would sell the things you need. They get merchants coming through, trading with the Circle, all the time."

Leliana smiled. "Sounds like a plan to me. Maybe I'll even convince Alistair to let me do something about his growth."

Solona chuckled, settling back with her shoulders between Leliana's knees. "He is looking a bit woolly, isn't he? We didn't really have a chance to grab razors when we left Ostagar."

Leliana continued to play with Solona's hair, running both sets of fingers through it, watching as the white strands shifted around her hands. The wardens mentioned Ostagar from time to time, but they never actually talked about it. Perhaps now was her chance to get an answer? "If you don't mind me asking, what happened at Ostagar? You and Alistair mention it often enough, but all I actually know is that the Teyrn somehow betrayed you."

Solona sighed. "I can only say what happened to Alistair and I. We don't know the details of what happened on the field."

Leliana was surprised. "You mean you weren't in the fight?"

Solona shook her head slightly. "No. Much to Alistair's chagrin, we were asked to light the signal for the reserve forces. This meant we saw very little of the actual battle. Or, at least, we weren't  _supposed_  to see battle."

"I take it things didn't go as planned?"

Solona snorted. "You could say that again." She shifted, settling further against Leliana, her head now pressed against the redhead's belly. Leliana's heartbeat increased at the contact, and it brought a smile to her face, to know that the mage was so comfortable with her already. It had been a long time since she'd had a friendship like this. She tried to ignore the small voice that told her that she wanted it to be  _more_  than simple friendship.

Leliana's attention was pulled back from Solona's body by her voice. "The darkspawn had beaten us to the tower, where we were to light the beacon. Almost all the soldiers inside were dead. We had to fight our way up to the top with only a handful of soldiers – and me, who had never been in battle before."

"That must have been terrifying." Leliana couldn't imagine. So far, the only fight the group had come across was Zevran's ambush. It was different from the single-minded, relentless chasing of a target in Orlais, but she had at least felled many foes, whether or not they deserved it. She couldn't imagine being thrust into war for the first time untested like that, and with nothing more than her staff and Circle robes. Leliana would have felt almost naked without at least some armor and a set of daggers.

"It was. I had been sent into the Wilds before the Joining ritual, but it was just a few ragged bands of darkspawn, and there hadn't been any surprises – unless you count Morrigan and her mother, I suppose. We did fine, though. We didn't lose a single person, and we killed every single one of the bastards on our way to the top. But that's where it all fell apart."

"Some sort of nasty surprise?"

"An ogre."

" _Merde…_ "

Solona nodded. "Yes, that was about all of our reactions. We did kill it, though. You should have seen it. I've never seen Alistair so angry. He jumped straight at its chest with his sword and damn near tore the thing's heart out." She paused for a moment. "Actually, it kind of made me want to puke, but I managed to keep it together. We lit the beacon and were about to leave the tower when a wave of Darkspawn rushed in. We were overpowered, and I don't remember anything until I awoke in Morrigan's hut."

"That must have been… interesting."  _Like waking after a drunken tumble, not sure if you tumbled or not_.

"Made even more so by the fact that I was completely naked."

"What?"

"Well, we'd sustained some nasty injuries. They stripped Alistair and I – no one else had survived – bandaged us up, and did us the courtesy of washing our clothes. Alistair had been awake for several hours when I awoke. Naked. In Morrigan's bed, no less. It was more than a little surreal."

"I take it you hadn't met her yet?"

"Oh, no, we had. During that sojourn into the Wilds I mentioned. This was our second meeting in as many days. Still didn't make waking up naked to the sight of Morrigan any less weird. If you haven't noticed, her chosen dress is…"

Leliana smirked. "Distracting?"

"That's the polite way of saying it," Solona laughed.

"I wonder if she even realizes how indecent her attire truly is?"

"It certainly doesn't leave anything to the imagination. We can all see  _exactly_  which assets she's working with. It makes sparring with her an exercise in concentration."

Leliana smacked Solona's shoulder in mock admonishment. "Shame on you, ogling her in such a way!"

"Can you blame me," Solona asked through her laughter, earning herself another smack from Leliana. As they settled, Leliana resting her hands on the mage's shoulder, Solona continued. "Anyway, she told us that Loghain had betrayed us all, quitting the field at the signal instead of flanking the Darkspawn. I still can't figure  _why_ , though."

"The game of politics is often difficult to understand."

"I've spent my  _life_  in politics. I don't think that Loghain is doing politics, at least not the petty type."

Leliana furrowed her brow. "How have you spent your life in politics?"

"Well, I realize it's not the same as state-level politics, but what else do you think a bunch of scholars get up to in their free time? We machinate our internal politics. There were so many little factions to navigate, it could become dizzying. And each person was a member of multiple factions, and you had to remember who was aligned with what group, or risk eternally insulting somebody. Oh, it was maddening!"

"That… actually sounds about what it's like among nobles, as well. Lady Cecilie was always trying to teach me how to be diplomatic. I feel I did well at it, though I do not miss it."

"No, it grows old and tedious. I much prefer life out here, despite the lack of a bed."

Leliana moved to the ground beside Solona, having tired of not being able to truly talk face to face with the woman. "I've noticed that you do not sleep well."

Solona sighed, toying absently with a blade of grass. "I don't but it's not because of that. Alistair hasn't told me  _everything_  he knows yet, I'm certain, but part of being a Grey Warden is that we can sense the darkspawn. This is how we know for certain that this is a blight – something Loghain denies, I might add. We can sense the arch demon. I see it every night in my dreams. It… speaks to me. I cannot understand it, though Alistair says some of the older wardens claimed to be able to understand the darkspawn's whisperings when they drew close."

"That is… frightening. I do not look forward to when we finally  _do_  begin to see advance parties of the darkspawn. I have never before seen them, but they sound horrid."

Solona's expression was very serious as she spoke, a dramatic change from the rest of their conversation. "They are. There is no room for them in this world. They need to be driven back from whence they came." There was a ringing finality to her statement that struck Leliana as odd, coming from the normally joking, playful woman sitting next to her. She shuddered, thinking of what could draw such seriousness from the warden.

"Come on," Solona's voice roused her. "It's time to wake up Alistair and Morrigan. Which one do you want?"

"Alistair," Leliana replied, without needing to think about it. Morrigan did not even try to hide her dislike of Leliana, and she had no wish to be the one to rouse the woman for her middle watch.

Solona chuckled. "It figures you'd land me with her. She's really not  _that_  bad. At least, she's calmed down from when I first met her. She only insults Alistair, now."

Leliana smirked. "Good. Then  _you_  can wake her from now on."

Solona groaned, walking off to rouse the mage from her bedroll on the other side of the fire.

* * *

Leliana sat at the table in the common room, eating her evening meal. They had arrived at Lake Calenhad with the sunset, and had decided to rest the night at the inn before striking out for the Tower itself. It had been a week since her conversation with Solona about Ostagar.

Alistair was sitting next to her, chatting and scarfing down as much food as he could get his hands on. Both he and Solona ate like it was their last meal, yet neither ever seemed to gain an ounce. If anything, they'd both trimmed down even more in the two weeks since Leliana had met them, both of them all hard muscle and sinew.

She turned away from her rather lackluster meal and up at the warrior beside her. He was still looking rather scruffy. He had not had a chance to shave since Ostagar, according to Solona, and his hair had grown out, as well. She considered him for a moment.

"Alistair?"

"Hmm?" His mouth was full.

Leliana rolled her eyes, a small smile crossing her lips. "I offered to cut Solona's hair for her later. I already purchased what I need from the innkeeper. If you like, I could do yours, as well? Not that the overgrown look isn't dashing on you, mind. Roguishly handsome, even."

He swallowed and smiled. "That would be great, thank you, Leliana."

Spying a bit of stew clinging stubbornly to his beard, she added, "I could also find a razor for you, if you like."

At his assent, she turned back to her much-smaller meal, unable to keep a smile of amusement from her lips.

* * *

"Sit still!"

"I'm sorry! I'm not used to this!"

Leliana made a frustrated noise and grabbed Solona's head, repositioning it once more with her face tilted forward. She took the sharpened shears to the back of her head and began cutting once more.

_Three, two, one…_

Solona shifted in her seat again. Leliana rolled her eyes. "That's it. Alistair, can you please come  _restrain_  your fellow warden?"

Zevran chuckled from his place by the fire. He was like a constant shadow, watching and occasionally commenting on the proceedings.

"I don't know. I'm pretty sure she could melt my face off…"

Solona snorted. "You mistake me for Morrigan."

Leliana huffed indignantly. " _I_  will melt  _her_  face off if she continues moving. I'm serious. Hold her head still. I only need a minute or two more."

She showed him where to hold the mage's head and set to work once more, finishing quite quickly with Solona finally sitting so still. Alistair watched her work curiously, finally saying, "You know, I've never actually seen what it looks like when you do that. I'm always the one stuck trying not to squirm in the chair."

Leliana smiled, expecting an amused reaction from Solona, as well. But the mage had gone very quiet, and very still. She wondered at it, but was too busy to divert too much attention. When she finished, she directed Solona to go bathe, advising that that was the only way to be truly rid of the small, spiky hairs down her collar that were unavoidable with short hair. The mage made a hasty exit, but Leliana was already turning to look at Alistair's hair, directing him sit down as she wetted it in preparation to be cut.

"So where did you learn to cut hair?"

"Lady Cecilie, the woman who raised me after my mother passed," Leliana replied. "Well, not  _her_ , per se. A servant of hers. She preferred to only have those she knew well perform such an intimate act." She ran her fingers through his hair, deciding how she wanted to cut it. It needed to be functional, but she was a firm believer that functional could not also have a flair of style.

"Cutting hair is intimate?"

Leliana smiled, working her fingers through his hair. "Indeed. You would think not, and yet…" Here, she dragged her nails across his scalp, eliciting a visible shiver down his spine.

"I, uh, see what you mean." He shifted uncomfortably. Leliana smiled to herself.

"Lady Cecilie had trust issues, to be sure, especially for an Orlesian. Too long spent in Ferelden, perhaps. But it was something I was happy to do for her. Though yours and Solona's hair is much easier – Orlesian hairstyles can be flamboyant things, even for men, requiring far more practice than I've had recently."

They settled into a comfortable silence as she began cutting, turning his head this way and that as she worked. She caught him staring once or twice when she moved in front of him, stifling a giggle as he hurriedly looked away from her chest. She should probably discourage him, but it was just so adorable. And she couldn't help it; there was a small part of her that enjoyed the attention.

" _Voila_!" She pulled away, letting Zevran get a good look at him. "What do you think?"

The elf peered at him, smiling after a moment. " _Perfecto_. Now only half of him looks like a wild man."

"Wild man?" Alistair's tone was all mock indignation.

Leliana clicked her tongue. "Yes, your beard is still quite thick and brambly. Come here, I will trim it so you can shave." She worked quickly, holding his chin in one hand as she trimmed his beard close to his face. She didn't even notice him trying to look everywhere but at her.

When she was through, she inspected his face with a critical eye. "You know, you would look good with a partial beard, just on your chin. If you like, I can shave it for you?"

"A… partial beard? Like those frilly mustaches men in Orlais wear?" Alistair was clearly dubious, but Leliana was already moving to get the razor she had purchased for him from the innkeeper earlier.

"Nothing so fancy as that. I will show you, and if you do not like it, you can always shave the rest of it off."

Alistair sat very still while she shaved his cheeks. She didn't blame him – she  _was_  holding a straight razor to his face. But she was good at what she did; you didn't get good at lock picking  _or_  playing the lute if you had clumsy hands. In five minutes, she had his beard shaped, and held a mirror up for him to see as Zevran expressed his approval.

"Well? Do you like it?"

Alistair inspected himself. "Actually, you know, I think I do. I'm sure it will look even better without all the spiky hairs and remnants of lather." He smiled cheekily at her.

Leliana smirked. "Yes, yes, go bathe. I'm sure you need it."

Alistair thanked her before he left, leaving her alone with the elven assassin. She quickly cleaned up, humming softly to herself as she worked.

* * *

Leliana found Solona standing in front of the window in their otherwise dark room. Morrigan had not yet returned from wherever she had disappeared to, and something told Leliana that they would not see her again until morning. She kept her step silent, hoping to take advantage of this opportunity to see Solona when the mage didn't think anyone was watching.

She paused just inside the door, studying the warden with a critical eye. Something was wrong. Solona was very still, gazing out at the Tower across the lake. Her arms were crossed over her chest, one hip cocked to the side. There was something… off about her posture.

Leliana deliberately took a heavy step, alerting Solona to her presence. The mage turned quickly to see who had entered, relaxing only a little when she saw it was the redhead. Leliana turned fully to face her and came to stand in the middle of the room. Solona turned back to the window, hunching her shoulders slightly as she wrapped her arms more tightly about herself.

"Solona?" No answer. "Solona, what's wrong?"

The mage still wouldn't answer. Leliana walked closer, placing one hand on the other woman's shoulder.

"Please, my warden. Tell me what is wrong?"

She felt Solona sigh heavily under her hand, then the vibration of her voice as she spoke. "When I was returned to the Circle, my hair was removed by force. They held me down to do it, held me down to tattoo my face. Tonight, when you had Alistair hold me still… It was incredibly similar to that first time. I… was hoping it wouldn't affect me the way it did, but, well…"

Leliana was quiet for a moment, growing still as realization struck. "And directing Alistair to hold you so, while I cut your hair…" She removed her hand from the mage's shoulder as if she'd touched fire, horrified at what she had done.  _If Solona had had a powerful man hold me down, forcibly remove my hair or clothing…_

Solona finally turned around, looking down into Leliana's face with such sad eyes. The moonlight coming through the window reflected off her perfectly white hair, giving her a halo around her head. The redhead's lips turned down almost imperceptibly at the corners, her eyes narrowed slightly. Leliana reached up her hand to cup the mage's cheek, ghosting her fingers across soft, warm skin.

" _Je suis un imbécile_ ," she murmured.

Solona shook her head slightly, closing her eyes and leaning into the hand at her cheek. After another moment, she unfolded her arms and wrapped them around Leliana's shoulders, engulfing her in an embrace. Leliana wrapped her arms around the mage's waist in return.

"I don't blame you," she mumbled, now rocking slightly with Leliana in her arms. She pulled her head up, resting her chin on Leliana's head. "I didn't even realize it would bring that experience back in such detail until it was already happening."

"Still," Leliana replied, her cheek resting just above the mage's breast. "I have always prided myself in being more sensitive than all that."

Truthfully, it had been a long time since Leliana had been close to anyone. Not since Orlais had she even  _begun_  to open up to someone else. She'd spent her time in the cloister closed off, participating in prayer and worship, but not getting very close to anyone in any way that might approach friendship. She was still far too wounded.

Then, maybe a month before meeting Solona, she had met Leandra Hawke at the Chantry. The woman was so open and pleasant; she couldn't help but become friends with the older woman. They saw each other every day, usually, talking about nothing and everything. It didn't take long for her to learn that the woman's late husband had been a mage, an apostate. Then she learned about Bethany, as the trust between them grew. But she still hadn't opened  _herself_  up – the Hawke matriarch had no clue about Leliana's past – but her relationship with the woman and her children had begun to undo some of the damage Marjolaine, and Leliana's own naivety, had done.

The point being, Leliana was out of practice. So many of her relationships had been built upon lies, mostly ones she had told about herself. She wanted a true relationship, based on actual trust, but she wasn't quite sure how to make it happen. Perhaps honesty was the best policy? It was certainly something she'd never really tried before; dishonesty was a requirement in her former life, and abandoning it was an exercise in diligence. She didn't know that she could just  _tell_  Solona about her past just yet, however.

Solona pulled her from her reverie with a small kiss to the top of her head. A shiver ran down Leliana's spine from the point of contact, and she pulled herself into the mage's embrace more tightly. Somehow, over the course of the last minute or so, she had gone from giving comfort to receiving it.

"You are not to blame, Leliana," came Solona's muffled voice. She could feel the vibrations of the taller woman's voice against the top of her head. "I never went into any detail about what happened. You can't read minds; you had no way of knowing."

Leliana finally, reluctantly, pulled away, keeping her hands on the mage's hips as she looked up into slate-grey eyes. "I still feel foolish. I forget that your and Alistair's relationship only started to warm around the time I met you both. Alistair told me that you two had a less than stellar introduction, and I saw a little bit of the tension between you that first day."

Solona removed her hands from where they'd been resting on Leliana's arms as she moved away. Flopping on her bed with a sigh, she said, "Yes. I'm afraid it took me a while to forgive him his templar training. It wasn't until I learned that he had little choice in the matter – much like me – that I began to even  _attempt_  to look past it."

Leliana joined her, sitting delicately on the edge of the bed. She twisted to be able to look at the mage, resting one knee on the bed and her hands in her lap. "And what did you see?"

Solona smiled at Leliana from her reclined position. "He's a good man. And he makes good jokes." She grinned. "I can't wait to get drunk with him and see what kind of trouble I can get him into."

"Trouble?" Leliana's heart sank momentarily. She had been so sure that Solona was not the type to be interested in men, was in fact interested in women. Was she wrong?

Solona chuckled. "Sure. Can you imagine what I'd be able to convince him would be a good idea when he's drunk? I imagine it would be a lot like having a brother."  _Brother?_  Now Leliana was just confused. "I'd probably even be able to convince him to play a practical joke on Morrigan. Not that either of us would come out of  _that_  alive…"

Comprehension dawned. "Oh!  _That_  kind of trouble! I thought… well, never mind."

Solona's eyebrows scrunched up. "You thought what?"

Leliana felt her face flush a little. "I thought you meant… to bed him."

The reaction was instantaneous. Solona made a gagging sound and exclaimed, "Maker, no! Alistair? Never!"

"Maker, no, Alistair never what?"

Leliana looked over to see the very man they spoke of standing at the door, a cautiously amused expression on his face. Solona just burst out laughing, leaving Leliana to explain.

"Your fellow warden expresses her desire to enter a drinking contest with you, Alistair," she said, thinking on her feet. It had always been a talent of hers. "She expresses her doubt that you would win."

"Does she, now? Well, we'll just have to test that sometime. But maybe not the night before entering the Tower, hmm? It would be unseemly to appear before the First Enchanter hung over." He winked.

"Indeed. By the way, you look most dashing, Alistair. I'm glad you like the beard."

"Yes, you look like a regular dandy," Solona teased, grinning broadly. Leliana was glad to see that her earlier injury was forgotten, or at least soothed.  _And_  that the way she related to Alistair didn't come close to approaching romantic.

Alistair rolled his eyes. "You just make the funniest jokes, you know that?" He made to leave, pausing just long enough to grace Leliana with a curious sort of smile.

She stared after him a moment, unsure once more of how to handle him.

"He likes you."

She turned to see Solona regarding her with an indecipherable expression. She sighed. "I know. I need to nip that in the bud, before he embarrasses himself."

The mage's expression changed to one of surprise. "You don't like him back?"

Leliana shrugged. "He is a nice enough man. But I do not desire him, if that is what you mean. I… He is…"  _I like_ _ **you**_ _._  "Well, there is nothing wrong with him. I simply do not reciprocate the nature of his feelings."

"Huh." Solona sat up, looking thoughtful. "Well. That's too bad for him. Just, try to inform him before he does something stupid. I'm not sure his delicate sensibilities would ever recover."

Leliana giggled. "I will be sure to. Now, off to bed with you. We have a full day of uncomfortable homecomings tomorrow, and the best thing we can do is be well-rested for it."


	6. Lake Calenhad and The Circle

Leliana awoke slowly. She hadn't slept in a real bed in two weeks, and she'd forgotten how uncomfortable sleeping on the ground was. She stretched, appreciating a real pillow under her head, and a clean sheet instead of animal furs, or her cloak. Though spring was rapidly approaching the heat of summer, the night air still held a bite of chill, and the fireplace glowed with coals. She looked forward to making tea upon them, but if she didn't get out of bed soon, she would have no time for it.

The other occupants of the room stirred as well. Leliana spied Morrigan sitting up and stretching much like a cat in the bed furthest from hers. She didn't recall the woman coming in the night before. Solona sat up as well, looking better than she had since Leliana had met her. It appeared they had all benefitted from a night in a real bed, and meals they did not have to prepare over a fire outside. She smiled to herself, slipping out of bed in a fluid motion.

The redhead bustled, making tea, offering some to the other women. Morrigan scoffed, leaving the room quickly to do Maker only knew what. Leliana suspected the woman was accustomed to her solitude, and to bathing outside in the cold. Given that it was almost summertime, it might even be rather refreshing, but Leliana would still take a hot bath over a cold stream whenever she had the choice.

"Here you are," she announced, carrying a mug over to Solona and pouring tea into it.

Solona smiled when she inhaled the aroma. "Thank you. It smells wonderful."

Solona's episode the week before had been a mystery. She and Morrigan had spent much of their time discussing it, along with, surprisingly enough, Alistair, who had apparently filled in some gaps for the mages. Leliana couldn't begin to follow most of their conversations, and often gave up trying. But Solona had tried to paraphrase for her, during their few watches together, and Leliana usually understood these explanations

The mage had started with a story, which of course drew Leliana in like nothing else. She'd spoken of a time before the Circle, before the Chantry. Apparently, it was a time when there were mages who wielded weapons and magic alike. This in and of itself was not special – anyone could learn to wield a blade – but these warrior-mages had some primal connection to the Fade, calling upon immense power that was unavailable to normal mages. These mages somehow  _used_  the power differently, as well, willing it with their mind much more directly.

It was at this point that Leliana began to get lost. She just didn't understand how magic was used to begin with. It had something to with the way mages incanted, but as an archer, she really had no concept of it. The point of the story, however, she did understand – these warrior-mages supposedly died out with the advent of the Circle. The common reason cited for this was that these warrior-mages were blood mages. But Solona and Morrigan – even Alistair, who knew far more of the history of the Chantry than Leliana would have guessed – doubted this. They both recalled reading that blood magic was an advent of the Tevinter Imperium, of mages without the talent of these warriors who were trying to find a way to acquire it. They had made a deal with demons and brought blood magic to the world.

But it was just a theory that Solona was one of these mages, and as she hadn't been able to repeat the feat, they had exhausted their theories and begun working on getting Solona better in a fight once more. In addition, the mage had continued her sparring with Leliana, as well as beginning to work on her skills with more mundane weapons, taking instructions from both Alistair and Sten before falling asleep exhausted each night. The others had agreed several days before, without Solona's input, to let her have the last watch permanently for a little while, since none of the rest of them were being pushed so thoroughly to their limits each night. When she stopped collapsing to her bedroll as a matter of course, they would revisit the situation.

As they sat in relative silence, sipping their tea, Leliana surreptitiously studied the mage. She had dark skin and short, starkly white hair and eyebrows. If that weren't striking enough, the woman bore a purple tattoo upon her face. It was rather pretty, to be truthful, but Leliana knew it had something to do with her punishment for leaving the Circle, and was therefore a painful mark upon her visage.

In addition to all of this, Solona was remarkably tall, adding to her striking appearance. Leliana scarcely came to her chin. And her frame was not unimpressive, either. It was clear Solona had lost weight since leaving the Tower, and complained of sore muscles just often enough for Leliana to know she was constantly sore, unused to such constant physical exertion, but trying desperately not to show it. But she was very strong, as evidenced by what Leliana had witnessed the night before. The innkeeper would not let the mabari into the inn as dirty as he was, and the mabari would not willingly enter the lake. Leliana had thought they were at an impasse, and was thinking of seeing if Sten could force the issue with either the innkeeper or the dog, when Solona had intervened. In one fluid motion, she had the dog in her arms and was trotting for the shore of the lake. The redhead chuckled to herself as she thought of it.

Yes, the mage was very strong. Long, strong arms covered by loose, flowing shirts. And that vest! She cut quite the figure with her breasts held in place by that leather vest, instead of a corset, like most women. In addition, she had long, strong legs covered by skin-tight hose tucked into calf-high boots. The thoughts sent a shiver down Leliana's spine. After her experiences in Orlais, she thought that she would never be attracted to anyone again. At least, not this strongly. And yet, ever since she actually saw the face the Maker had shown her, she had experienced an undeniable attraction to the woman. And the mage seemed to reciprocate, if Leliana was any judge of such things. Memories of undressing her after her episode came unbidden to Leliana's mind.

Before she could explore on the fantasy further, Solona broke their silence. "What happened to your mother, Leliana?"

"Hmm?"

Solona ducked her head. "It's just that you talk about her not being around anymore, but you haven't said anything else. I was just curious. I imagine it's a rather personal question. You really don't have to answer, I'm sorry I asked." She was backtracking, and fast.

Leliana shook her head. "I do not mind, Solona. Really, after the questions of mine you've answered, you have every right to be curious. How about I tell you about her while we prepare for today? I'd like be ready when the boys are, rather than rushing around while they wait impatiently."

Solona smiled. Leliana couldn't be sure, but she thought that a blush was coloring the woman's dark skin. The thought made her smile to herself. "That sounds alright to me."

Leliana rose from her perch on Solona's bed, ruffling Max's ears as she did. "Well, one of the things I miss most about my mother was how she smelled…"

* * *

"Good morning, fair Lady."

Leliana smirked when she heard Zevran, not needing to see his lecherous expression to know it was there. "Good morning, Zevran. I trust you slept well?"

He inclined his head. "Yes, in fact, I did. You look like you slept well, yourself, though how you can in a room full of beautiful women, I will never know. Certainly, if  _I_  were in that room, little sleeping would have occurred." His eyes twinkled as he grinned at her.

Leliana shook her head. "And that is why you are not invited in the tent, my dear elf," she countered, smiling slightly as she took a seat across from him and reaching for a roll from the basket in between them. Solona made for the door, leading Max outside to relieve himself. The dog didn't like to go anywhere without his master in sight, and Solona had expressed a wish to stretch her legs before breaking her fast. Leliana turned her head back to the table, only to make direct eye contact with the elf. He smirked, clearly knowing exactly why Leliana had been staring, prompting the woman to blush. She had been caught ogling the warden; there was no getting around it.

Instead, she chose to ignore it. "You have proven yourself a reliable companion, if nothing else, Zevran. And you can cook! How is it that you remain a bachelor?"

Zevran's eyes twinkled once more. Elven eyes were far larger than a human's, though not comically so, and Leliana found it difficult not to stare. "Ah, but I have too much love to give,  _señorita_. If I were to allow a woman to tie me down, no matter how lovely, she would be depriving the rest of woman – and man – kind of my talents." He winked. "Besides, the life of an assassin does not lend itself well to the joys of domestic life." His expression grew sly. "As you no doubt know, my  _bard_."

Leliana froze. How did he know?

"Your secret is safe with me,  _señorita_ , though I suspect the whole group will know soon enough. Secrets are difficult to keep in a group like this. Every single one of the our companions has a secret, perhaps with the exception of the dog. It is my job to deduce them, not to share them. A blabbermouth assassin is often a  _dead_  assassin." He got up suddenly, before she could reply, moving away from the table to try to engage the giant Qunari in conversation. It seemed to be a personal challenge of his, to draw Sten out. So far, he had failed spectacularly.

Leliana could only stare at him for a moment before recovering. She looked away after several moments, losing herself to thoughts of her past as she gazed into the fire across the common room. Her breakfast sat forgotten, half-eaten and spread in front of her on the table.

She remained like that until Alistair appeared, shoving himself into the spot Zevran had occupied and reaching roughly for food. "Good morning," he greeted, smiling jovially. "I trust it's gone well so far?"

* * *

They stood on the ferry silently. They had left the cart behind at the inn. The innkeeper hadn't even charged. Leliana suspected he just wanted the boisterous group gone before his other few customers awoke. That, and he kept eyeing Sten nervously.

Leliana was watching an interesting shift in the two mages. Morrigan's scowl grew harsher and harsher the closer they got to the Circle Tower. Her disdain of the Circle was clear, and she had never shied away from voicing it aloud. Her open mockery of Solona had mellowed some, however. Leliana suspected their working together, and their magical sparring, to be the reason.

Solona's expression was more difficult to read. Leliana knew some of her history, how the mage felt about the Circle, but she suspected the emotions coursing through the other woman at this moment were quite complicated. Solona saw the Tower as a cage, but it had also served as her home, and the home of everyone she knew to any degree, since she was a little girl. She had escaped and been forced back in, and Leliana suspected that Solona was feeling the ghost of the emotions from her forceful return now. But she was now free, legally, and probably felt a small amount of smugness, perhaps feeling that she was better than those whose aid she sought.

Leliana only suspected all of this, however. She couldn't be sure. Either way, though, the silence was killing her. She leaned over and whispered the first thing that came into her head. "Did I ever tell you that I like the way you wear your hair?"

Morrigan's eyes focused, snapping to Leliana's face. "My… hair?"

Leliana smirked. "Yes, the black strands sprouting from your head."

Morrigan's expression was unreadable. "Why do you like my hair?"

"It is… simple, yet elegant."

Morrigan stared at her in disbelief, then looked away with a huff. "You have an unusual fascination with hair, judging from how you butchered both the warden's heads."

Leliana rolled her eyes.  _Try to talk to someone…_

"I don't know," Solona said, looking between the two, clearly amused. "Hair says a lot about a person."

"Like how you're an apostate," interrupted the templar currently using a pole to get them across Lake Calenhad. Leliana stared incredulously as he continued. "I know what your short hair and the mark upon your face mean. I remember when you escaped and came back. Mages belong in the Circle. You should be  _ashamed_  for trying to escape. Everyone needs to know that they are punished when they break the rules. I still can't see how it was legal for you to leave the second time." More and more venom crept into his tone as he spoke, practically spitting the last sentence.

"Maker, if you don't shut up, I will not be held responsible for what they do to you-" Alistair started, obviously trying to make the man quit while he still had his life, but Leliana cut him off. She surprised even herself when she pushed passed them all in a heartbeat. A second later, they all flinched at the sound of her hand slapping the templar in the face. Even Morrigan and Sten stared with what could only be called surprise.

"This woman is a Grey Warden! You will respect her and her companions, or you will hold your tongue!" She just couldn't stand it. The first thing they'd done to her as part of her torture was to cut off all of her hair, her gorgeous, luscious hair that she had been so stupidly proud of. Imagining that happening to Solona, being held down and shamed so, just for wanting her freedom, was too much. She'd been trying to draw them out of their solemn moods, and it had been working, before this idiot man decided to add to the conversation.

The Templar didn't say anything, just stared wide-eyed for a moment before nodding dumbly and turning away, busying himself with the pole. She glared at his back a moment longer before moving deliberately back to her spot between the two mages, not meeting anyone's eyes as she shuffled between them. She stared forward, almost daring them to say something. She wasn't sure why she was feeling so confrontational, but her temper had definitely gotten the better of her today.

"My knight in shining armor," she heard Solona's voice whisper near her ear. She sounded more than a little amused.

Leliana's lips quirked up at the corners in response, and she turned her head to look up at the taller woman. She quickly turned away again, but stood grinning like a fool for the rest of their journey across the lake.

The five people and the dog quickly stepped off the ferry almost the moment it touched ground. Max ran off to mark as much stuff as he could, and Morrigan, Sten, and Zevran moved away. Leliana suspected it was to get away from whatever uncomfortable conversation was bound to happen. Alistair looked like he might say something, but Leliana was saved when Solona cut in before he could.

"What is it with you and hair?"

Leliana smiled once more. She was relieved to be spared the serious conversation. They'd had far too many of those lately, and she had no wish to have another on the threshold of the Tower. "What? I like her hair. It is simple, yet suits her. Not like the elaborate styles we wore in Orlais. They involved flowers, ribbons, jewels…"

"Jewels?" Alistair was still with them, and wore a look of incredulity. Evidently, the man couldn't envision putting something so gaudy on his head.

Leliana nodded in answer to his question, seizing on the opportunity to shift the mood somewhat. "One year, feathers were all the rage, and Lady Elise decided she needed to outdo everyone else, and actually wore live songbirds in her voluminous hair."

"That… is the epitome of having too much time and money," Solona scoffed, letting out a half-laugh when Leliana held up a hand to let them know there was more.

"The chirping was quite charming for a while, but you must realize, terrified little birdies often have loose bowels."

That was it. They both burst out laughing, Leliana joining them after a moment. As their laughing wound down, she continued.

"Dear Maker, you can but imagine what she looked like by the end of the evening!" Another round of laughter followed, the three of them sharing in a camaraderie that was coming more easily to them. They'd been walking together more and more on the road, and often ended up on watch in some combination of two out of the three of them. Leliana had noted with some delight that the other two's distrust of each other seemed to be waning. Their ability to talk about Solona's strange affliction, as well as their sparring, seemed to be doing the majority of the work.

As their laughter wound down, Alistair moved off to check on the others, and, Leliana hoped, to give her some privacy to apologize to Solona for bringing up such a loaded topic while amidst everyone.

"Forgive me," she started, looking up into the warden's face. "I was just trying to draw everyone out of their silence, and instead forgot that I was treading into such  _fraught_  territory." Maker, it sounded like she was trying to excuse herself. What had happened to her way with words? Perhaps she had spent too long in the Chantry.

"There is nothing to forgive, Leliana," Solona said, her smile turning from amused to a little sad. "You had no idea that templar would be such a fool." Her expression softened. "Thank you, though."

Leliana's expression changed to one of surprise. "For what? Making everything awkward in front of everyone?"

Solona chuckled. "Sure, let's go with that. Or we could go with the fact that you slapped a templar in the face for me." She smirked. "I swear they heard it up in the Tower!"

Leliana blushed a little, ducking her head momentarily. "He was so rude! I don't care what you've done, what he was saying was beyond disrespectful. I-" She stopped suddenly when two of Solona's fingers went over her lips, shushing her. The woman's eyes twinkled, almost like Zevran's, and yet so very differently.

"Please," she said, smiling that warm, earnest smile once more. "Just accept my gratitude. No need to explain yourself." Leliana just looked up into her eyes and nodded, barely able to focus on anything but the feeling of the mage's fingers on her lips. She almost whimpered when the fingers were removed, and Solona began to move off. It had been so long since she was able to feel someone touch her and have this kind of response. She missed it. She couldn't let her leave, not yet.

"It's just," she began, her words stalling the mage, "I feel so comfortable talking to you, like I could say anything and you wouldn't judge me."

Solona tossed her a lopsided grin. "Perhaps I keep it to myself? You'll never know." She chuckled. "Honestly, I think it's adorable, how you ramble sometimes. Like yesterday, when you rattled on about pretty Orlesian shoes." The mage winked.

Leliana smiled, blushing slightly at the teasing, but pushing on, having to get this out before it killed her. Yes, it had only been two weeks, but it was important. Because of her past; because she couldn't let it dictate the course of her future. "I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I haven't felt this close to anyone in a long time. Not even at the Chantry. I know we've only known each other a short time, but I really enjoy your company, Solona."

Solona's grin just widened; she was clearly not done with her playfulness. "And… do you often enjoy the company of other women?"

Of all the responses to her sincerity, Leliana was not expecting  _that_. But there were far worse responses; this, she could work with. After all, she used to flirt for a living, yes? She smirked, placing her hands on her hips and jutting one of them out as far as it would go. "And what would you say if I said yes? Very much so, in fact."

"Oh, I might giggle, maybe look coy? Isn't that how women respond to that sort of thing?"

Leliana chuckled. Solona, so far, had not proven herself to be  _that_  kind of woman. The image was more than a little amusing. "You must do that, then! Later, when I'm not prepared for it. Surprise me." She winked. "I'd love to see what you look like as a wolf in sheep's clothing."

Solona blinked for a minute, then burst out laughing once more. Leliana smiled to herself and moved off to see if she could help Alistair with anything, glad to have lightened the mood at least a small amount.

* * *

Solona's good mood didn't last long. When they got inside, it became clear to Leliana that something was very wrong. Injured templars abounded, some yelling out for mercy. Many had the thousand-yard stare the redhead had heard about soldiers getting amidst bleak battle. More than one looked traumatized beyond what their minds could recover from.

"This doesn't look good," Leliana heard Alistair murmur.

"Yeah, no shit," Solona replied, moving with sudden purpose toward a templar across the room. Coming to stand before him, she addressed him by name. "Gregoir, what is going on here?"

He turned, and Leliana was curious to see his expression go from surprise to disdain. "Ah, the  _Grey Warden_. What, pray tell, are  _you_  doing here?"

Solona stood up to her full height and answered him just as acidly. "I am here as one of the last remaining wardens,  _ser_. We have documents compelling the Circle and it's templars to aid the wardens in time of a Blight. There is a Blight coming, Knight-Commander, and  _we_  are gathering the army that will stop it."

Leliana, standing behind the two wardens, studied him as he studied the woman before him. He had greying hair, and was of a height with Solona. Even Alistair was only just taller than her, not even by an entire inch. He was broad, clearly used to wearing all that armor, probably capable of fighting and killing in it all day. She watched as his eyes flitted to each of her companions in turn, and she flashed him a charming smile when they landed upon her own face, feeling satisfied when he was caught off-guard by her reaction to his scrutiny.

Finally, he spoke. "You cannot have it. The Tower is compromised. I am awaiting the Right of Annulment from the Chantry in Denerim."

Leliana had no idea what it meant, which confused her, as she'd spent more than three years in the Chantry in Lothering. Clearly, both of the wardens knew, however, as the color was currently draining from both their faces.

Solona spoke after several moments of silence, her voice low, quiet, and promising a very high amount of pain should she not get what she wanted. "I would know what happened, Gregoir."

"You left this place,  _Warden_." The Knight-Commander's voice was every bit as low and quiet as Solona's. "It is of no concern to you. And I have not forgotten your role in Jowan's escape. I see our mark upon your face had no effect whatsoever,  _apostate_." He practically spat the last word.

Leliana felt the blood drain from her face. She had thought the tattoo symbolic in some arcane way. But in reality it was a  _brand_? It marked Solona as an apostate? Shaving the hair Leliana could almost understand, even if it was cruel in its own right. But to mark her so permanently, in a place she could never hide?  _How can men of faith do such a horrid thing? The Chantry teaches forgiveness… But I suppose I've never actually_ _ **seen**_ _how it treats its mages._  The thoughts made Leliana uncomfortable, but she had no time to examine them further.

Solona's eyes narrowed dangerously at Gregoir's words. "Be that as it may, this was my home. They are my friends. My  _family_. I would know what has happened here."

"Please," Alistair interjected, before the air between the two could grow any thicker. "We are not helpless. We have a mage, warriors, and I was a templar. Perhaps we can help."

Gregoir's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You are one of the Order? How do I not recognize you?"

"I was only an initiate before I was recruited into the Grey Wardens. Our late Warden-Commander found me at the Chantry in Denerim before I was sent here to be initiated."

"Right. Well. As capable as I'm sure your rather  _diverse_  group is, you are no match for my entire squad of templars, and they were no match for the veritable horde of abominations now roaming the Tower. It must be purged. There is no other way."

Solona grew rigid at his explanation. Leliana was tempted to reach out a hand to comfort her, but she resisted – now was not the time for tenderness and platitudes, not in front of so many people. "You will let us in, Gregoir. There might be people alive. We must try to save them."

"And if we do," Alistair continued before Gregoir could deny the mage he clearly had no fondness for, "then will you help us against the Darkspawn?"

Gregoir considered him for a moment. After what felt an eternity to Leliana, the knight-commander gave one curt nod. "You may enter. But know this: I will not open the door to let you out unless the First Enchanter himself is presented to me."

"Very well," Alistair said before Solona could reply. He led her away immediately, leaving the rest of their companions to stand awkwardly in front of the knight-commander. He peered at them all once more before walking away with a huff of disgust.

Leliana did not know what Alistair was saying to Solona, but from afar, at least, it appeared to be having a calming effect. She looked around as her companions moved toward the door and spotted someone who looked promising.

"Excuse me, ser," she called, moving toward a man who was clearly the templar's quartermaster. "We did not come here expecting to fight. Perhaps we could purchase some equipment?"

"My lady, if you truly  _are_  able to get rid of the horrors within, you may  _have_  the equipment that I can spare."

She smiled. "Thank you, ser. I do not imagine you have light armor for my warden friend? Or weapons for the elf over there? We left his at the inn. I believe he excels with a two-weapon style…"

Five minutes later, she was buckling light armor made of hardened leather in place of Solona's vest. The woman stood holding her staff out away from her body, allowing Leliana to adjust the individual pieces. She looked up when Solona spoke.

"I still don't see why I need armor."

"Because," Leliana sighed, explaining for what felt like the hundredth time. "If you decide to engage something up close, you should have more protection than your  _hose_."

"But Morrigan has nothing but her robes – which can barely be called that, by the way."

Leliana rolled her eyes. "Morrigan has never run at an opponent and thrown a flaming dagger at them without warning. Nor does she even know how to fight hand-to-hand.  _You_ , on the other hand, have fallen into some ancient mage-rage without warning. Besides," she added, standing and grabbing Solona's leather cuirass and giving it a sharp tug, an unnecessary adjustment. "I would see you safe. I cannot protect you from the Fade. I have no special abilities of the Grey Warden's. All I  _can_  do is make sure you are armed and armored. So let me do this."

She made to move away, but Solona's arms came up to take each of her arms in her hands, holding Leliana in place. She looked up into the taller woman's face, and saw an expression there she couldn't read. The mage didn't say anything, just searched her eyes for a moment before drawing her into an embrace. Leliana didn't hesitate to hug her back, holding her tightly about the waist for several seconds, her face buried in the mage's shoulder. When Solona pulled back, she smiled slightly, then left the redhead's side, going to confer with Alistair and to ask the templars guarding the large, heavy doors to open them.

Leliana breathed slowly to calm herself down. Her emotions seemed to be getting the better of her today.

* * *

The heavy door slammed home with a heavy thud of finality. Leliana couldn't help but feel a slight chill. Everything about the Tower was cold stone and high, vaulted ceilings. It was hardly homey.

Solona took the lead, immediately moving through the hallway they entered. They encountered nothing in the next few rooms except more tapestries, high walls and ceilings, and everywhere the cold stone. If she wasn't expecting a demon around every corner – what did they look like, anyway? – then Leliana might find it beautiful. As it was, it just served to make her more and more uncomfortable. How did Solona grow up in this place, thinking of it as home?

After checking a few rooms, they began to hear voices. Zevran actually heard it first, with his enhanced elven hearing.

Alistair spoke up as they approached the doorway leading into that room. "What do you think? Abominations?" He looked just as apprehensive as Leliana felt.

Solona and Morrigan treated him with the same look of incredulity. "What is it, exactly, that you think an abomination is?"

_I have no idea…_

He shrugged at her. "I don't know. I never actually became a full templar, remember? All I know is a demon inhabits the body of a mage."

"You would know an abomination. The body changes. The being no longer speaks in a way that even sounds human."

"Unless it is a particularly powerful spirit," Morrigan pointed out. "For example, my mother, as you know, has a powerful spirit inside of her."

"Right, because your mother is the picture of normal." Solona rolled her eyes. "The point is that the voices we are hearing are from people, likely mages." She pushed forward, her expression hardening. "Let's go find out. Stay behind me."

Leliana pulled her bow, stringing it in one fluid motion. It made her feel safer just to have the weapon in her hand. She trusted the mage – Solona would certainly know – but she was still incredibly apprehensive.

They rounded the corner to the sight of an old woman holding a staff in their direction, a young man and woman and a score of children behind her. "Stay back! I can defend myself better than you might think!" Even raised in warning, the woman's voice was almost musical.

Solona stopped, turning her head to the side. "Wynne?"

The older woman lowered her staff a little, blinking. "I … Solona? I hardly recognize you…"

"I did look a great deal different the last time we spoke," Solona remarked, crossing the room quickly to stand with the group of children, unimpeded by the elder mage. "But it was you who taught me history, and you were Irving's apprentice before me."

"I thought you were killed along with the rest of the wardens at Ostagar…" The old woman lowered her staff the rest of the way, regarding the rest of the group briefly. "Why are you here?"

Solona knelt among the children. "We came to compel the Circle to help us against the Blight." She hugged many of the children, murmuring to them indistinctly. One in particular, a little boy no older than six, didn't let go, and she eventually stood with him in her arms and turned, kissing his head and rocking him from side to side. "Tell me the situation, Wynne. We're here to lend what aid we can."

The sight of Solona standing there amongst the children, rocking the little boy with all of his limbs wrapped around her, melted Leliana's heart into a puddle. Suddenly, even with the shimmering blue field of light she spied over the only other door in the room, it felt like a home in here.

She stowed her bow and looked around as Wynne and Solona walked over to the corner, speaking quietly. She saw all of her companions had put their weapons away except Sten, who, she noted with some alarm, all of the children were staring at, wide-eyed. She walked over to him and placed a hand on his arm.

"They are children, Sten. Frightened. Perhaps you could out your weapon away?"

He looked down at her with his usual indecipherable expression. With a grunt, he nodded, sheathing his sword and turning away from her. She turned back to look at Solona and Wynne once more, a small smile on her lips. She didn't understand the giant man, but sometimes she found his predictability entertaining.

She caught Solona looking at her, the little boy sitting in her lap while she sat on a stone bench, listening to the other mage. When they made eye contact, the mage quickly looked back to the elder woman. Leliana didn't have much time to ponder it, however, as Morrigan came up beside her at that very moment.

"Why is she behaving like this? I thought she detested this place?"

Leliana glanced sideways at the witch. She wore an expression like she detected a very unpleasant odor. "I think her feelings are more complicated than that, Morrigan. She may have hated the limited freedom here, but it was still her home. She still built relationships with the other mages living here. They taught her, and if I had to guess from the child currently clinging to her, she also did some teaching herself."

Morrigan was silent for a moment, eyes narrowed as she regarded the Warden. "I simply do not understand. It is foolish."

Leliana smirked. "You will, Morrigan. Just not yet."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

Leliana didn't answer, instead moving to speak with Alistair and Zevran, who stood together by the door they had come through. Alistair had become much more comfortable around the assassin, for reasons Leliana did not know. They often ended up on watch together, so perhaps it was a blossoming friendship from that?

"Are you two alright?"

"Oh, Leliana," Alistair said, clearly being pulled from some inner thoughts. "Yes, I'm alright. Zevran?"

"Yes,  _señorita_ , I am happy to say that nothing is amiss. I never had the chance to thank you for choosing such fine weapons for me." He indicated the two short swords crisscrossed on his back and the daggers at his belt.

"Well, it hardly seemed appropriate to send you to battle abominations and demons with nothing but your hands."

"Nevertheless, I see this as a gesture of trust, and I do not intend to waste it."

"And how is your shoulder?"

He moved the appendage in question. "Thanks to the mages' extraordinary healing poultices and potions, it is almost back to normal. It is truly astounding – I would have expected an injury like that to take at least a month to give me this kind of motion."

"Good. I'm glad you will not be defenseless today."

"As am I. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I may try to see if I can't coax our large friend into revealing his opinions on magic."

Alistair looked taken aback. "Why in the Maker's name would you want to know that? Don't the Qunari take a rather dim view of mages?"

"Indeed. Perhaps he feels strongly enough that I can actually provoke him?" He tweaked his nose and slipped by them, heading confidently over to the giant warrior. They made an odd combination, with a height different of considerably more than a head.

"He's crazy."

Leliana chuckled. "Perhaps. Or perhaps he merely knew that I wished to speak with you alone."

Alistair turned to face her. "You did?"

"Yes. It is perhaps not the best time, but I would be remiss if I did not speak with you about something."

"What is it?" His brows knit in concern, making her feel that much more guilty for what she was about to do.

"Your interest," she stated bluntly. "You would do well to find someone else to spend it on."

Alistair just looked at her dumbly. "I'm sorry?"

She sighed. "I see the way you look at me, Alistair, and while the attention for its own sake is not unwelcome, I fear that if I do not say something, you will think I am leading you on." She paused, groping for the right words. "I think you are a wonderful man, and you will make some woman very happy. But that woman will not be me."

Alistair was quiet for a moment, his face moving evenly from bewilderment to embarrassment to disappointment, finally settling on a rueful half-grin. "Was I that obvious?"

Leliana smiled kindly. "Only to Solona and I." She paused. "Which possibly means nobody missed it…"

"Great, that makes me feel so much better." He rolled his eyes, smiling despite the embarrassment of the situation. "Be honest – what is it that you don't like about me?" His face was suddenly that of a kicked puppy.

She placed a hand on his cheek as she looked up at him. "It is nothing to do with you, Alistair." She smiled warmly. "You are a wonderful man, as I said. But I am not in the market for a man. If I were, I imagine you would be the kind of man I would seek."

"Alright, I suppose I can accept that." He took a deep breath as she dropped her hand. "I'll try not to make it awkward if you don't?"

Leliana giggled. "It is a deal, Alistair."

He let out a sigh. "Good. Okay."

"I will give you some privacy. Thank you for understanding, Alistair."

She left him to his thoughts, feeling slightly guilty at the timing she chose, but mostly relieved that it had gone so well. She was at a loss for what to do now, but Solona saved her from having to figure something out.

"Alright, everyone. It looks like we have blood mages in the Circle. They staged a coup, as it were." Solona came over, still holding on to the boy. "We're going to get going in five minute. Wynne just needs to speak with the children and her apprentices."

"Is there anything else we should know?" Alistair asked, concern clearly etched on his face.

Solona shook her head. "Wynne had more details, but that was the main crux of it." He nodded and turned, going to speak to Wynne himself. Solona came right up to Leliana, the child still clinging tightly to her.

"Leliana, I'd like you to meet someone."

Leliana smiled. "I saw you had a handsome suitor the moment we came in. What is his name?"

Solona smiled warmly down at her charge. "This is Robert. I taught him everything he knows. Isn't that right, Robert?"

The boy lifted his head and nodded, smiling into Solona's face. Solona smiled right back, finally putting the boy down and sending him off to the other mages. She looked up at Leliana with the same dopey grin on her face. The sight made Leliana's heart want to burst.

"He's a good boy. I've missed them." The mgae's face fell a little. "I can't believe they've had to see what they've seen." She narrowed her eyes. "I'm going to  _kill_  Uldred for this. This is  _not_  the way to win freedom, dammit!"

Leliana's eyebrows knit in confusion. "Why don't you start at the beginning? What's going on exactly?"

Solona sighed. "There's a mage here, Uldred, who I never liked much, and he's apparently allied with Loghain and staged a coup, as far as Wynne could glean from the other mages who were in the meeting."

"Meeting?"

"Yes, apparently this all started from a meeting. The politics I mentioned to you some time ago."

"Right."

"Yes, well, some people made it out of there alive, and Wynne spoke to one of them. He told her what he knew before they were attacked. He didn't survive, and Wynne was forced to shut everything behind that barrier you see over the door over there."

"I  _had_  been wondering what that was for…"

"Let's get going. I am eager to purge this place of this rampant evil."

They moved to the door, where Wynne was preparing herself. Hasty introductions were made, before Wynne dropped the barrier, leading them through the door with no hesitation.


	7. The Tower I

Sten's war cry filled the cavernous room. They had still been unable to find him any armor, and Leliana winced as he took a punishing blow from a creature that appeared to be made from fire or magma before taking a backward step and bringing down his sword to sever what passed for the creature's head. Their new companion, Wynne, stepped forward immediately, healing the wound with the murmur of a spell.

Since leaving Wynne's apprentices and their wards, they had run into roomfuls of these creatures, the three mages immediately finding a way to get past their differences and work together with a deadly efficiency that was frightening to behold. Alistair, Sten, and Max were really just acting as a buffer, keeping the horrors of the Tower away from the mages long enough for them to work their mystical arts. Leliana felt somewhat superfluous in their wake, but she contributed in what ways she could, unlocking doors and putting arrows in the eyes of the blood mages they came across.

Solona had stayed herself thus far, but had become possessed with a fervor that no one had yet seen in her. She was singularly determined to purge her home of these monsters.

"Is everyone alright?" the mage warden asked curtly, looking around. Everyone bobbed their heads or murmured affirmative answers. "Good. Let's go."

Leliana ran up to her, falling in step beside her. The mage was walking very quickly, made even faster for Leliana because of the warden's superior height. The Orlesian was at a loss for what to say, but it would take being blind to miss the tension in the taller woman. She settled on gently slipping her hand in Solona's. The warden turned her head to look at Leliana, giving her a wan smile.

"Hey," she said, giving Leliana's hand a squeeze. Leliana noted with relief that she did not pull away.

"Hey yourself." Leliana tried to smile, but could only knit her eyebrows at the tension in Solona's face. "How are you holding up?"

Solona's attempt at a smile vanished, her eyebrows also knitting into a scowl. "I know all I can talk about is hating this place. But it was still the only home I really ever knew. And now it is turned into this… I don't even know how to describe it."

"I can't imagine what it would be like seeing your home turned into this." Every piece of furniture in every room had been overturned, if not outright destroyed. Things that were clearly prized possessions - mementos, journals filled with intensely personal words – were all scattered as though some massive beast had barreled through. The only thing missing was the blood – and bodies - of the dead.

Solona made a noncommittal noise, pursing her lips and looking ahead. She didn't let go of Leliana's hand until they came to the next closed door.

"This is the library. Time to start looking."

Leliana nodded. "What should we look for?"

Solona shook her head. "We don't have time to do a complete search right now. Wynne, Morrigan, and I will just do a cursory sweep while we're in here." She let go and opened the door.

They were greeted by burning bookshelves and at least three of the molten monsters.

Solona didn't even look behind her to shout for the other mages. "Wynne! Morrigan!"

Leliana stepped to the side to make room, loosening her bow and pulling an arrow with the same hand. The arrows didn't seem to do anything but upset the creatures, but that had the potential to serve as a distraction, and distractions were often the difference between life and death in combat.

Wynne strode through the door incanting, her staff raised. Water began pouring from its tip in a wide arc, which she directed at the beast that was currently bent on attacking the old woman. It hissed and shrieked, its flames trying desperately to stay alive despite the quenching water.

Alistair stepped around her and thrust his sword, an enchanted blade from his time training as a templar, directly into what should have been its face. It succumbed to the two-sided attacked, shriveling and shrieking into a pile of ashes on the floor.

Solona was busy dealing with her own creature, backing away from the door and toward a strange podium at the far side of the room. Leliana watched, transfixed, as a guttural chanting fell from the woman's lips, her eyes fixed upon the monstrosity undulating toward her. When she reached the podium, which looked much like a fountain or birdbath, she dipped the tip of her staff in it and thrust toward the creature with a final shout. Some type of liquid sprang from the end of her staff, sailing across the ten feet between them to land sporadically on the creature's body. They pierced as though solid, a sickening sizzling sound rising above the din the rest of her companions made while dispatching the third creature.

A bright light flashed, forcing Leliana to close her eyes until it subsided. When she opened her eyes, Solona stood above a pile of ash, a long dagger in her hand, her staff lying on the ground next to the podium. She was panting heavily, glaring down at the remains of the creature she'd been fighting.

"Solona!" Leliana ran over, still holding her bow, an arrow fitted loosely to the string. "You are alright?"

Solona's eyes snapped to hers. "Yes. Shit, we need to put these fires out, right now! This is the entirety of the library of Ferelden's Circle!"

Leliana nodded, dropping her weapons and going to see what she could do. Only, Morrigan and Wynne were well on their way to putting out every fire, some kind of white smoke blowing from their staves making the flames die.

She stood impotently for a minute, watching in fascination as the mages did their work. She was nudged out of her gawking when her bow appeared before her. She looked up to see Solona holding it out for her, a tired smile on her face.

"Thanks for dropping everything. But they clearly have it under control."

Leliana nodded, taking her things with a smile. "Don't mention it. What was that in the fountain?"

"Raw lyrium. It is normally a mineral, but we keep it under a spell to keep it liquid at room temperature. It's powerful enough to eat through almost anything in its liquid form, so I thought I'd use it on the demon." She shrugged at the last. "I kept trying to incant a spell, but my concentration would not keep with such a creature closing on me."

"It was… terrible. And fascinating."

"The things we are capable of doing are truly otherworldly," Solona nodded, meeting Leliana's gaze. After a moment of just looking comfortably at each other, she seemed to shake herself from a daze. "Come. We must keep moving."

* * *

At the end of the second floor, they found the First Enchanter's office. Leliana crouched to pick the lock – apparently these doors were safe from being opened magically, but no one had thought to enchant them against lock picks – moving away once she was finished so that Wynne could enter first. She crossed the threshold just behind Solona, everyone else staying out in the hall, and stood in the corner as the two mages searched the room. The First Enchanter was definitely not there, but his things could provide some clue as to  _why_  the Tower was currently crawling with abominations.

"Can you open this for me, Leliana?" Solona was crouched before a trunk in the corner. She moved over next to the mage, peering down at it.

"I can, but what's in there?"

"The texts I couldn't find in the library might be in here. This is where Irving keeps forbidden material, and that book also held information about blood magic." The look in her eyes was almost pleading, and Leliana couldn't deny that look.

She merely nodded her head and gently moved Solona out of her way so she could work.

It proved to be a rather stubborn thing, but after a few minutes of delicate work the lock popped open with a satisfying sound. She opened the trunk, allowing Solona to take her place and begin rifling through the many books inside.

Wynne joined them after a moment, holding what appeared to be a journal. "You'll want to see what Irving wrote about your departure, Solona. It is… enlightening, if nothing else. He was proud of you, in the end. I'm afraid it sheds no light on what happened in that meeting, however." Solona just nodded absently, absorbed in the pages of a particularly heavy-looking tome. Wynne noticed. "What do you have there?"

"Irving's private stash. This is the book I was looking for, that mentioned what happened to me last week." She stood and stowed it in her small backpack, making ready to secure it to her back. As she did so, something seemed to catch her eye, and she plucked another book, this one thinner and somehow more sinister-looking, up from within the trunk. Rifling through the pages quickly, she put it in her bag as well before securing it and moving out of the office.

Wynne seemed to disapprove, but said nothing. Leliana was curious what held the older woman's tongue, but felt now was not the time to ask.

* * *

"So, what is it the qunari believe, my large friend?" Dammit if Zevran's voice wasn't polite and interested, like he was discussing the weather at a party with strangers and not the Qun. "You are named after it, yes? The Qun?"

Leliana watched from behind them as Sten looked over to the much smaller man and grunted with a nod. "The Qun. The path to wisdom. I am not surprised you don't recognize it."

"What is it, exactly?"

Sten looked forward once more. "Ask a tamassran: they know how to explain things to children. It is not for Sten to teach the Qun."

Leliana stifled a laugh. Zevran shook his head as the giant qunari lengthened his stride, quickly overtaking Solona at the front of the group. The redhead quickened her own step to fall in line with the elven assassin.

"I do not think he likes you very much, Zevran."

"Ah, but he simply does not yet  _know_  me. I will win him over, yet, my friend, have no doubt about  _that_." Optimistic as ever.

Leliana giggled. "Yes, well, perhaps you are right. But I see that he is not the only one you spend your energies on? You and Alistair seem to be on speaking terms, now."

"You noticed?" Zevran flashed her a smile. "He is a handsome man, but I fear enamored only with the women of this little group. A shame, really."

"Yes, I have… spoken with him about that…"

He gave her a sidelong glance. "You rejected him, then?"

Leliana nodded. "He took it well, I must say. He surprised me, really. He seemed too…"

"Innocent?" Zevran cocked a single brow with his suggestion.

Leliana nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose so. I do not think he has had much opportunity for romantic experience. I suppose it makes sense, as he was raised by the Chantry."

"Was he, now? Interesting. I had no idea."

Leliana smirked. "Are you planning on spoiling his maidenhood, Zevran?"

The elf chuckled. "Only if he will let me, fair Lady."

The fell into a comfortable silence after their quiet conversation, walking side-by-side with their weapons out, relaxed. After a few moments, however, Leliana heard Solona addressing the giant qunari up ahead. They had stopped moving, and Solona was facing the warrior, her hands on her hips. Leliana exchanged a look with Zevran, and they both picked up the pace so they could hear the conversation.

"Why did you come to Ferelden, Sten? Aside from murdering innocent farmholders."  _What did he say to get her on the offensive like that?_

Sten looked down at her with his usual unreadable expression. "To answer a question."

Leliana moved around behind the giant, watching as Solona raised a brow in answer. "And what was the question?"

Sten hummed a little before answering in his deep voice. "The arishok asked, 'What is the Blight?' By his curiosity I am now here."

"Arishok? What, pray tell, is an 'arishok'?"

"The one who commands the antaam – the body of the qunari."

"So he's, what? Your king?"

"Qunari have no kings." Leliana couldn't be sure, but she thought his voice was taking on a hint of disapproval.

"Why does he care about the Blight?"

"Why do you?"

Solona's other eyebrow rose to join the first. "I am a Grey Warden. It is my duty."

"Exactly. You don't ask. Nor do I. The arishok sends me, and I go."

Solona knit her brows. She seemed more confused than anything else by his answers. "Don't you have to report back, then?"

"Yes."

"Forgive me if this is impertinent, but… what are you still doing here?"

"I cannot go home."

Solona looked like she might push, but then thought better of it. "Well, I suppose you can keep travelling with us. Until I release you from your bond…"

"Thank you. Can we move on? There are abominations to kill." He lifted his sword, an easy task for one of his size, and hefted it onto his shoulder, stepping away from her.

"But, wait," Solona said after a moment. "What were you doing in that cage?"

"Sitting, as you observed." He turned to face her once more, looking almost annoyed, though Leliana supposed she could simply be projecting how she  _thought_  he felt.

Solona crossed her arms, settling into her usual sarcastic, joking manner. "Cute."

There was no mistaking it – Leliana was sure that was an annoyed expression. "Your grasp of the obvious is remarkable."

"Just tell me." Exasperation colored Solona's tone.

Sten raised an eyebrow, displaying fine motor control Leliana was surprised he had.  _Though I suppose it's good he does, given he wields that massive blade…_  "I did." Leliana snorted a laugh, stifling it immediately by shoving her fist into her mouth. "Parshaara. Is there anything else?"

Solona put her hands at her side and shook her head. "I have no wish to go round in more circles with you."

"Very well. Let us go, then."

No one said anything else as Solona led them on, shaking her head as she went.

After a while, their surroundings began to change. A sometimes orange, sometimes red, fleshy substance clung to the walls, convulsing in the corners of the room. They ran into no more abominations, though they did find a possessed templar, who they unfortunately had to kill. It was that, or let the man run around with a demon controlling him.

Leliana didn't want to know what the fleshy material was, and neither did anyone else, apparently. Even the dog – a species known to eat its own feces – avoided it, one sniff when they first entered that floor enough for him.

All banter had died down, her companions singularly focused. She walked with her bow out, an arrow ready to be drawn within the span of a heartbeat. It appeared the only way to the next floor was through the main, central chamber.

"How much are you willing to bet there's a creepy monster-demon in there," Alistair asked Solona in a loud whisper.

Solona snorted in response. "I don't think I'm willing to take that bet, Alistair."

They opened the door that would take them to the room with the next staircase in it, weapons ready for any threat…


	8. The Tower II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've just realized that the last couple chapters and this one have a lot of slapping. Oh well. The rest of the fic is going to have a lot of stabbing, of Darkspawn and others. So I guess it's not a big deal.
> 
> Longer chapter now. The last chapter and this one were originally one, but my awesome beta Diablo Kades was right - this needed to be a chapter break. So sorry for the shorter chapter last time! Trust me, this one's making up for that in a hurry.

The music was lovely this evening. And what was even better was that she wasn't the one performing it. She did love to play and sing, but right now she wanted nothing more than to drink a little and enjoy the party. Because for once, she had nowhere to be and no one to trick out of their money, reputation, or both.

She turned around, taking a fragile glass of the bubbling, dry wine from a passing elven servant, and studied the room. It was a truly remarkable affair. Everyone who was anyone was present, and they were all dressed their best. Leliana herself was wearing a gown of cream-colored silk bordered in pale green. It showed off a healthy measure of her modest bust without being scandalous, and was quite possibly the loveliest outfit she'd ever had the pleasure of wearing. Her long, gorgeous hair was down tonight, spilling over her back, hiding the expanse of her shoulders that the dress left uncovered. She felt beautiful.

A very tall, commanding Rivaini woman appeared like magic before her, and Leliana studied her closely. Her clothing was fine, tailored perfectly for her tall, lithe form. She had pure white hair, cut very short, and had an elegant, sweeping tattoo upon her face. The way she moved from one foot to the other in front of Leliana made the redhead want to dance.

And then they  _were_  dancing. She didn't particularly remember how it happened, but she didn't question it; just let the tall woman in men's clothing lead her around the dance floor. She heard her name spoken a few times, but didn't understand any of the other words. She smiled brightly, laying her head upon the woman's breast and sighing in contentment. There was really nothing better than being in the arms of a beautiful woman.

The thought brought with it a surge of desire, and she reached up her hands to bury in that short hair, tugging the woman's head down for a kiss. She hummed in pleasure as the woman's lips parted, giving access to her tongue. She tasted of honey and tea, and made Leliana want a taste of something deeper. She pulled back and placed one hand on each of the startled woman's shoulders, pushing her back toward the bed. They were in her bedchamber, and she was going to make passionate love to this woman. This woman who she knew.

This woman named Solona Amell.

Marjolaine spoke from her spot next to her on the bed, interrupting her thoughts. "This is your opportunity, my pet."

She was sitting astride the tall, dark woman, a knife in her hand. Leliana looked down, saw that they were both naked, her pale legs straddling the dark skin of the woman's hips. Her eyes were drawn to where her auburn curls met the woman's dark, thick curls, then back to the thin, razor-sharp knife. She looked to Marjolaine in confusion.

"You are a bard, Leliana. She is the target. Strike now, while no one knows you are here!"

Leliana looked back to where she straddled the warden's hips.

Warden.

She was a Grey Warden!

"Dammit Leliana, put it down! You know me! I'm not your target!" It was like cotton had been removed from Leliana's ears. Her eyes widened, and she felt herself return as if from a nightmare. All around her, the world shifted, and then she was sitting straddling the Warden on some nebulous surface, formations rising in the distance. They were both once again wearing their leather armor, and Leliana's hair was it's proper length. Marjolaine's naked form was gone. She looked down into Solona's eyes, and saw fear, anger, and something she couldn't identify there.

The look came through in the color of her eyes. Slate grey, and yet looking vaguely blue at the moment, with pupils that were incredibly large. Large like they would be in a moment of passion. Like had they been kissing, stripping each other of their clothing…

She almost yelped as the rest of her memories hit her. She leapt back, putting as much distance between herself and the warden as she could, and let her mind steep in memories for a moment. There had been a demon, an abomination covered in grotesque swathes of putrid flesh. It had spoken with a deep, slightly slurred voice, telling them to sleep. Leliana had tried to resist, but it was much like trying to keep the sun from setting – it was just too powerful a force.

So what had just happened? There was nothing to fill in the time between succumbing to the demon's commands and the party. It must have been a dream. And for most of it, a very  _good_  dream – if sparse on the details.

"Leliana, pay attention!" Solona strode up to her, breaking Leliana of her reverie with her close proximity.

"Solona! I'm… sorry. I don't know what came over me." She looked away, ashamed.

"We are in the Fade, Leliana. Strange things happen here. But there is no time to discuss it. I just need to know you're you."

"I'm… me?"

"Yes. There's a sloth demon we must fight. No one's stayed this long – they've all dissolved into mist or something. Maybe that was them waking up…"

Whatever else the warden had to say was lost as a buzzing filled Leliana's ears. She smiled a little at the sight of the beautiful woman before her. The buzzing turned into a soft, faint music, and she began to sway slightly in time. The memory of their kiss made her smile widen, and she leaned forward, resting her head on Solona's breast, her hands sliding to the warden's waist. She was a good woman, loyal, trustworthy – a Grey Warden. Surely it wouldn't be a mistake to trust someone again if it was this woman?

Leliana tilted her head up almost lazily, staring up with heavily lidded eyes and smiling wistfully. The warden was looking at her with an expression of love, of passion, and she would lean down any moment, take Leliana into her arms, and carry her off to bed. She would make love to her, make her feel safe, protected, like there was nowhere else in the world she'd rather be. Leliana longed to be curled up naked in those strong, protective arms.

Instead, she was shoved roughly away from the warden, and before she could ask what had happened, a biting slap to the cheek made her whole head turn and her ears ring. The last thing she saw was the warden's look of regret before the world seemed to fade away from her.

It reformed on the same nebulous surface as before, a monstrosity of epic proportions in front of her. Around her stood her companions, every single one of them dropping into a battle stance and pulling their weapons. Leliana quickly followed suit, taking aim on the beast before her.

When it spoke, it spoke with Marjolaine's voice, spitting out all of the poisonous things the woman had ever said to Leliana when she visited the redhead in the dungeons. It was odd, but the words didn't seem to come from the air - they seemed to sound inside her head.

As one, the group attacked the demon, Leliana's arrow embedding itself in the creature's eye a split-second before everyone else's attack struck. The beast fell, and the world faded away once more.

* * *

She felt cold stone against her cheek. Her eyes snapped open to the sight of the monstrosity's back facing her. An anger she'd never quite experienced before boiled up within her, and she pushed herself to her feet, ignoring cold, exhausted limbs. This creature had brought back her most shameful time of existence. It had preyed upon her weakness, trying to cripple her with a specter of the woman who had caused her so much pain, urging her to kill the person who was starting to mean a great deal to her. It needed to die.

Letting loose a battle cry she'd never heard from her own lungs, she ran forward, forcing protesting limbs to obey. Pulling her largest blade from its place on her back, Leliana leapt upon the creature, causing it to stumble. It whipped around with surprising speed once it recovered, but it was unable to throw Leliana, who had wrapped her free arm around its neck. With a feeling of triumph, she drew her short sword across the thing's putrid throat, feeling something far thicker than blood flow over the arm that was holding her to it, hot and sticky. It fell to its knees, incomprehensible garble escaping it as it died.

The redhead loosened her hold as the creature fell forward, whatever parody of life it possessed now extinguished. She pushed herself up, stumbling as all the aches and pains of her exertions finally hit her at once now that her task was through. She cried out as she fell to the ground, her sword clattering from fingers that would no longer obey.

But she did not reach the cold of the floor. Strong arms caught her, wrapping around her waist and preventing her from hitting the stones. She looked up and saw Solona there, holding her much as she had when they danced. Only this was real, and that had just been a delusion, a dream caused by a demon, tricking her into revealing her innermost secrets and desires.

"Easy, Leliana. Being in the Fade for so long drains you. I don't know  _how_  you found the energy to do that, but you saved us all." Leliana's heart skipped a beat at the smile the mage gave her. "My savior, once again." And then Leliana found her legs swept out from under her, Solona standing with the Orlesian in her arms. She found she was so fatigued, she couldn't even string a sentence together, and so she merely held on, her arms around the mage's neck as she was carried from the room.

Her awareness must have faded in and out for a little while, because the next thing she was fully aware of was Solona bending over, setting her down on a staircase. Lifting her head from where she'd evidently rested it upon the mage's shoulder, Leliana let go. She found she was better able to sit upright than she was to stand, but still felt a bit woozy.

Solona stayed squatting in front of her. The mage produced a cloth from somewhere and began to clean the demon's ichor from her skin and armor. When she was through, she reached out, moving a strand of hair from Leliana's face and peering at her concernedly. "How are you feeling?"

"A bit unsteady," Leliana answered honestly.

"Well, that's to be expected. You  _did_  just kill a demon. An old and powerful one, at that." Solona shot her a lopsided grin.

Leliana flushed. "But why am I so exhausted? You aren't. Neither is anyone else." She looked down into her lap.

She felt Solona hook a finger under her chin, a gentle pressure turning her to face the mage once more. "They're all exhausted, except Wynne, Morrigan, and I. We've done it before," she clarified.

"When?"

Solona's expression turned rueful. "My Harrowing."

"I'm sorry, I don't follow…"

Solona moved to sit next to Leliana. "When you leave your apprenticeship in the Circle, they send you into the Fade, where you face a demon. If you succumb and become an abomination, they kill you. If you resist, you become a full mage of the Circle."

Leliana stared for a moment before she could find words. "That's awful! How could they do that to anyone  _intentionally_?!" She'd just  _been_  under the thrall of a demon, and couldn't imagine someone she trusted doing that to her.  _Marjolaine might_ … She physically thrust the thought away with a quick shake of her head.

Solona sighed, placing her elbows on her knees and propping her chin on her fists. "To be a mage that is in control is to be a mage who withstands temptation. We all had to do it. It's just how it is for mages of the Circle. Hell, even Morrigan was thrust into the Fade by her mother, to face a demon.  _She_  was only eight."

Leliana didn't know what to say, so she just placed a hand on Solona's shoulder, trying to simply be present. She remembered how she had acted in her dream, but didn't know how much of it Solona had actually experienced. Remembering it with her waking mind was like trying to make sense of her memories from childhood – the things that made sense in it just  _didn't_  now. Hopefully, most of Solona's involvement had simply been imagined, a figment of her own imagination rather than the mage's  _actual_  involvement.

Wynne approached them, a sympathetic look upon her face. "How are you feeling, dear?"

"I am exhausted, but otherwise unharmed. Thank you for your concern, Wynne."

"Think nothing of it, child. I've given everyone else something to restore their energy. Well, everyone but Sten, who refused." She smiled slightly. "I have one here for you, as well, dear. It seems as though you could use it." And she placed a vial with a clear fluid in Leliana's hands, moving away before she could even be thanked.

Leliana was expecting it to taste vile, or burn, or  _something_ , but instead, the potion was tasteless. It did the trick, and within a few minutes, Leliana's aches were gone, and she felt she could stand on her own. She got up, stretching and testing her limbs, walking around the room a little as she did so.

"All set?" She turned to find that Solona had trailed her around the room.

She nodded. "I just need to get my weapons back, and I am ready to go."

"Oh, I, uh, I actually grabbed those for you," Alistair said somewhat sheepishly, offering her the sword and longbow. She thanked him and she took them, turning absently as she slid the blade home in its sheath. She stopped her rotation when she spotted the other warden a few yards away. A smile crept up on her face as she watched the tall woman giving her dog a hearty belly rub, muttering low to him about how good a boy he was.

She stood watching until Solona stood up and looked in her direction. Her face flushed, and she hurriedly moved to stand on her own. After a few minutes, they moved on.

* * *

"Is he… trapped? What is that thing?" Alistair moved to the Templar trapped in some kind of cage of white light. He was crouched on one knee, muttering the Chant of Light and rocking slightly back and forth.

"'Tis a… magical prison." Morrigan began stalking around it, completely ignoring Alistair, who was trying to coax the man out of his prayers, to acknowledge them. Her eyes looked like those of a cat that had discovered a mouse, and only needed to figure out how to reach it. "Fascinating."

Leliana came to stand next to Alistair, looking down at the poor man. Solona joined them, wearing a pitying expression. "I know this man," she said.

"I recognize him, too, though I am afraid I don't know his name," said Wynne, coming to stand beside them. Leliana looked back to find Sten and Zevran standing with Max. Sten in particular seemed to be having a rough time in the Tower, if she could judge the giant at all. He had started several arguments with Solona since their time trapped by Sloth, and the only thing that had stopped the last one had been her reminding him of his oath to her.

She looked back when Solona explained who the man was. "His name is Cullen. He was always very kind to me. Even when he held me fast while they tattooed my face and cut my hair." Her eyebrows lowered in concern. "I wonder what happened to him to that he is trapped in this device." She kneeled down, Leliana joining her, to study the man. "Cullen," she called softly, prompting a whimper from him. "Cullen, it's Solona. Are you alright?"

"Stop tempting me, foul creatures!" His voice filled the room in a panicked shout. "You will not win my will! Foul beasts, to use my infatuation with her against me! Her! A mage! It is forbidden, and you taunt me with it! Begone!"

He looked up, a look of dismay marring his face as he looked right into Solona's eyes. He stood up somewhat shakily and spoke, his face now disbelieving. "You're still here? But that's worked every time before."

Solona had stood up with him, a look of deep concern on her face. Leliana didn't blame her. This man had apparently been in love with her, or at least sweet on her, but she gave no clue as to whether she'd known or not.

"We're real, Cullen. It's alright. We're going to find a way to get you out of there." She held up a hand, testing a touch against the "surface" of the white light. "What happened that you're in here?" She patted the surface a couple of times; apparently, it caused no harm to touch.

"It's Uldred! He's a blood mage." Cullen seemed willing to accept that they were real; honestly, he seemed downright  _relieved_. "He and a whole slew of other mages took templars and mages alike into the Harrowing Chamber! Abominations have been pouring out! They have been torturing mages and templars until their wills break. I'm here because my will has not yet broken." He rested both hands against the light of his prison, looking into her eyes desperately. "How are you here? Why did you come back?"

"It's my home, Cullen. Or at least," she added softly, "it was."

"But you left! After helping that blood mage to escape!" He was getting upset, anger and accusation creeping into his tone.

Leliana still hadn't gotten that story out of Solona. She would need to ask her about it, sometime when things had calmed down, and they were alone.

"I came for a different reason," Solona explained, her features hardening some at Cullen's tone. "But when I saw what was happening, I had to help. Would you fault me that?"

Cullen's eyes narrowed. "It is no matter. You must kill everyone in there!"

Both Solona  _and_  Wynne balked at this, Morrigan finally making her way into the conversation. "You would have us kill them all for this one mage's folly?" Her eyes were narrowed to match his. "You are no better than the fool of a knight-commander out there, ordering the purging of the Tower because of his fear."  _Is that what this Right of Annulment is? How terrible._  This conversation was going downhill so quickly that Leliana barely had time to think.

At Morrigan's words, Cullen seemed to notice the rest of them for the first time. He panned around, taking in the apostate, the former templar, the giant with horns sprouting from his head, the politely smirking elf, the giant war dog, the elder mage, and, last of all, Leliana herself. His eyes snapped back to Morrigan's face as he answered her. "They have forced the other templars into submission. They are now abominations. The other mages – it is impossible to know who is infected. The only safe course of action is to kill them all!"

Morrigan's eyes narrowed even further, but it was Sten's voice that replied.

"It is a good plan."

The effect was immediate. All three mages  _and_ Alistair whirled around, staring at the giant in disbelief. Leliana herself had an almost physical reaction to his words, and she was the one who spoke.

"You think we should kill everyone in there because they  _could_  be abominations?"

"Yes."

"Why?!"

"It is the safe thing to do, as the templar said."

"You are wrong." She turned, catching Solona's eye before locking eyes with Cullen. "You are wrong. We do  _not_  kill innocents." She eyed him a moment, trying hard to ignore the small voice inside her that reminded her of what she'd done as a bard. "Or should we kill you, as well? Perhaps you did not fare as well as you thought against their influence? How are we to know? Best to be safe."

The blood drained from Cullen's face. "No! You shouldn't kill me! I didn't lead this incursion!"

Solona spoke. "Exactly. Neither did Irving or the other innocent mages. We will kill Uldred. We will save anyone else we can."

"But-"

"I am not bargaining with you, Cullen." She searched his eyes. Her voice got quiet, low. "I am sorry I could not be what you wanted. Stay here; stay safe. We will return for you soon.  _With_  Irving and the others." She turned and marched right up to Sten. "And if you kill someone who isn't attacking us, I  _will_  kill you, Sten. Is that clear?"

He looked down at her with his usual impassive expression. "Perfectly."

She nodded once and moved past him, removing her staff from its place on her back and stalking to the staircase, turning to address them all once she was at the bottom step. "Are we all ready?"

Leliana looked around, seeing a chorus of nods, each member of their party readying what weapons they had. Leliana herself removed her bow from her back, stringing it with a swift, practiced motion and pulling an arrow with another. She found Solona's gaze on her, and she nodded once in answer to the silent question in the mage's eyes.

Solona nodded back, turning to move up the stairs.

* * *

Uldred was insane. That was the only explanation Leliana could think of.

As he and Solona argued, she melted into the shadows, accompanied without prompting by Zevran. Their gazes met for an instant; they exchanged a nod before heading off silently in opposite directions.

"I'm sorry, are you upset I killed your lackeys?"

Solona seemed to be settling into a biting sarcasm in her anger. Leliana thought it suited her a lot more than the guilt and uncertainty the mage seemed to have been fighting through before they got to the Tower. It struck her that  _this_  was territory the mage was familiar with. Outside of the Tower, Solona knew very little by experience. But here, she could take authority – it was  _hers_ , and they were all looking to her for guidance in this realm that was so unfamiliar to them. Even Wynne seemed to be taking the younger mage's lead on this venture.

"You're mad! There's nothing  _glorious_  about what you've become, Uldred!" Wynne's voice carried to her from the other side of the room. She was crouched low in the shadows, her bow out, an arrow ready to be aimed and released. A glint of light alerted her to Zevran's position directly behind the insane mage who was admitting that he was an abomination. Hopefully the elf would be able to take out the insane man before too much blood was shed.

When Uldred pointed out Irving, the First Enchanter, Leliana changed tactics. Stowing her weapons, she began to move again, hoping to get behind him and pull him out of harm's way. She could feel the argument coming to a head, and had little time to make it into position.

"Okay, I'm done, Uldred. You were a swine when I was here. Now you're both vile  _and_  crazy." Solona spoke dismissively, but acted surely and swiftly, immediately breaking into the words of the Litany of Andralla. She droned in a deep, monotone voice, eyes fixed upon Uldred. Leliana had no more time to watch, however; she had to act. So as Sten burst forth with a war cry; as Alistair traced his sword in an odd jerking motion and shouted a single word of power; as Morrigan and Wynne began reciting together in an entirely uncharacteristic way; and as Max paced back and forth in front of his master, ready to defend her to the death; Leliana rushed from the shadows, wrapping her arms around Irving's shoulders and heaving him back from danger.

He cried out, struggling weakly, but hearing her voice near his ear seemed to calm him. She deposited him somewhat unceremoniously and turned, crouched protectively in front of him, to regard the battle. Uldred and Solona seemed to be locked in a battle of wills, Solona chanting ceaselessly as his body trembled. Sten was locked in fierce hand-to-hand combat with a creature of decomposing flesh, his sword forgotten on the ground some feet away. Alistair was driving his weapon into another creature, already turning to help Wynne and Morrigan, who were holding off three others on their own. Leliana looked for Zevran, getting ready to curse their trust of the assassin when she caught sight of him, stalking forward almost casually from the shadows.

He walked around in front of Uldred, who did not seem to see him at all. The elf studied the mage for a moment, looking between him and Solona. Neither acknowledged his presence. Before she even knew what he intended, he pulled back a dagger and struck Uldred in his temple with the hilt; it only stumbled the mage, but it did the trick, breaking his eye-contact with Solona.

 _Why didn't he just stab the man? Or slit his throat?_  She would need to ask him later, if she remembered.

In any event, it seemed to be all the help Solona needed. She lifted her staff with a shout, directing a bolt of electricity that Zevran barely leapt away from before being cooked. The electricity hit Uldred just as his body transformed, causing a very large, very dead demon to fall at the mage's feet, narrowly avoiding crushing her with its weight.

And just like that, it was over. Silence reigned as all of her companions looked for more foes to fell. Leliana, too, examined the room. They had saved several of the mages who had not fallen prey to Uldred's madness, chief among them Irving. In addition, no one seemed to be sporting any serious wounds. Max was limping slightly, but even as Leliana noticed, Wynne was coaxing him to stay still while she healed him.

Solona stood stock still in the middle of the room, her body rigid, her staff still raised. Alistair walked over to her and began speaking, but Leliana could not hear a word. She resisted joining him, as it seemed as though this was something she could not help with. Instead, she went to check on the assassin, whose actions seemed to have saved them all a long, bloody battle.

"Ah,  _señorita_ , I hope you have come to reward the fair hero? My bed has been rather cold of late." Zevran's eyes glinted with his ever-present mischief.

Leliana chuckled. While his lecherousness may eventually grow old, this kind of banter was  _quite_  easy for her to handle. "Ah, but I cannot, my dear Antivan. I am afraid that I enjoy the hunt. You are simply too  _easy_."

Zevran clucked his tongue, winking at her. "It is usually a winning strategy. I think I will keep it, even if it keeps you out of my bed."

Leliana shook her head, deciding to change the course of their conversation. "Why did you only strike him with your pommel? He didn't know you were there - you could have simply slit his throat."

"Something I heard once. A mage locked in a battle of wills has their mind slightly linked with the other. I was afraid that if I killed him outright, harm would come to our fearless leader."

Leliana regarded him thoughtfully. Where had he heard such a thing? "Are you all right? You were very nearly fried."

"I am fine, my fair Lady," he answered, giving himself a quick once-over. "I will admit that it was rather close, but nothing is ever certain – that is the fun in life, in my opinion. It is no fun without a little risk."

Leliana could appreciate that sentiment. Life in the cloister had been peaceful, but the last few weeks had held far more excitement than the three years before it, for sure.

She was about to say as much when they were both surprised by a resounding slap. Leliana turned to see that Morrigan had just delivered what was probably a ringing blow to Solona's face.

The mage seemed to be recovering from some type of trance. She swayed for a moment, shook her head almost violently, then thanked Morrigan gruffly before moving away. Alistair and Morrigan shared a look that Leliana couldn't place before moving after the warden.

Leliana moved to get Irving to his feet. It was done. They had done what was necessary, and freed the Tower from the influence of the blood mage and his demon. They could be rid of this place, and perhaps even get a good night or two's rest.

"Let me help you." Leliana turned her head to see Solona take Irving's other arm. With their height difference, Leliana was no longer needed to aid the old man in walking. She slipped out from under his arm and fell in behind them. She couldn't bring herself to look into Solona's eyes, not anymore. All she could think of was the contents of that dream.

"Are you alright, Irving?" The old man nodded. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes. His robes were wrinkled, and he was having an incredibly difficult time walking. Who knew how long he'd been forced to sit upon that stone floor? And at his age?

"I will be alright, Solona. How is it that you are here with such incredible timing?"

"We came looking for the Circle's help against the Blight, Irving. The battle at Ostagar went badly, as I'm sure you know. The Grey Wardens were demolished, thanks to Loghain; everyone is dead except Alistair and I. We are hunted by Loghain's men, yet we must fulfill our duty and defeat the Blight."

"How will you defeat a Blight with just the two of you, child?"

"We have treaties compelling the Circle, the dwarves, the elves, and men to aid us. That will be our army. We have some time, at least – the Darkspawn did not escape the battle unscathed. Demolishing the king's army took its toll, and their army will not be able to march again in large enough numbers until next spring, at the least."

Leliana saw Irving nod. "I suppose that is the right way to look at that tragedy. Well, I can say right now that you have the Circle's support. We will spend the next year rebuilding, focus on training those mages and apprentices who survived this incursion in battle and healing magic. How long will you stay, child?"

"I don't know, Irving. We have much to discuss. Something… happened to me, something involving my magic, and I was hoping to find some answers. I took a book from your office, but I was also hoping that you might have some wisdom to share."

"Well, let's get downstairs, get Gregoir to call off the Right, and we can speak once I've had a chance to rest. I imagine we  _all_  need some rest after that ordeal."

Solona chuckled at the old man. "You aren't wrong there."

The left the room, finding Cullen free of his prison with the death of Uldred, and made their way down to the base of the Circle Tower.


	9. The Tower Is Free

Solona let the water drip off of her face for a moment. She stared into the rippling water, the events in the Tower rolling through her mind. Her battle of wills with Uldred had left her… it was hard to describe. It was like she had a fever in her blood, calling to her to keep on dominating, to break those unwilling to bend to her will. She didn't know what had caused it, but Morrigan, apparently, had known how to end it. A sharp slap to the face had brought her back to herself.

But she had been ashamed and confused, refusing to speak with anyone but Irving on their way back down to the base of the Tower. They had picked up Cullen along the way, but she refused to speak with him as well. By the end, he was sulking, reserved, then calling for the death of all the mages once he got to Gregoir, which Gregoir thankfully refused to do, electing instead to examine everyone thoroughly. She very much doubted whatever infatuation he'd held for her was still in place. All the better – she was far from interested in  _him_.

So far, Alistair, Wynne, and even Sten had tried to engage her in conversation, the first two out of concern, the latter to argue with her once more over a mage's proper place in the world. She'd countered with her knowledge of what the qunari did to their  _serabaas_  - chained, with their tongues cut out - and then walked away from him. For Alistair and Wynne, all she had was silence, shaking her head and moving away. She and Alistair had grown closer, it was true, exchanging jokes and histories, finding an easy peace with each other. Wynne was not like the rest of the Circle mages; her performance in the Tower had proven  _that_  without a doubt. But she simply had no words for them.

She was glad they had succeeded, but confused by her ordeal within the Fade, and atop the Tower.

She growled, frustrated, grabbing a rough towel and scrubbing it over her face. Her own dream of Weishaupt had been almost comical, the demon thinking she wanted a peaceful time with the wardens. Even though she  _did_  want that, she had learned to retain her memories within the Fade when she went through her Harrowing, so recognizing the illusions for what they were was terribly easy. Her fights with the demons had also been easy; it seemed they were not accustomed to someone who recognized them for what they were so readily. Even Sloth itself had been only a slight danger.

No, what had left her feeling discombobulated had been her ordeal with Leliana. She had been the most difficult to remove from her dream. It had been a wonderful dream, Solona had to admit; at least at first. It had quickly escalated, however. She'd had no clue why it was so hard to awaken the woman until she realized that she herself was actually  _part_  of the illusions, part of the desires swirling deep within Leliana's mind. That realization had struck at the same time that her clothes had disappeared. She'd looked up to see Leliana, also naked, straddling her hips, a slender knife in her hand. A naked, creamy-skinned brunette, older than the both of them, had been present as well, urging Leliana in Orlesian to kill Solona.

It had taken her until that morning to put two and two together. Now she knew that Leliana had been some kind of assassin in Orlais, that it must be the reason she had fled to Ferelden. And she wasn't sure how she felt about the information. Especially not when juxtaposed against the feel of the woman's body atop hers, before she'd realized Leliana might actually try to kill her. Though Leliana had clearly been confused to find herself in that position. And she had listened when Solona had told her to stop.

But she had fallen right back into fantasy, looking up at her with those eyes full of affection, of longing, and no small amount of lust. It was honestly one of the hardest things Solona had ever done, to snap her out of it with a slap to the face. It had worked, of course, and Leliana had disappeared, reappearing with everyone else when she was finally confronted with Sloth in the Fade. Leliana had seemed to take the demon's manipulation of her desires personally, savagely killing it whilst the rest of them fumbled with cold joints and bodies drained of energy once awake.

And, really, what was so wrong with having been an assassin? Solona supposed it simply did not jive with the image she had of the woman, peaceful lay sister that she had been when they met. Perhaps she should talk to her? She didn't know. She had collapsed in the bed at the inn the night before, and when she'd awoken not a half hour ago, it was clearly past noon and Leliana had not been in the room. Morrigan had, but had left rather quickly after Solona had gotten out of bed, not saying a single word to her, only staring critically before vanishing. She suspected she would be hearing more about her little domination trance sometime in the future.

Solona sighed, tossing the towel aside and turning around. She found Max looking at her, his head cocked to the side.

"Well, what do you think I should do, boy?" He cocked his head to the other side, letting out a single whine. She laughed, falling to her knees and pulling the dog in to kiss his forehead.

"Well, it is good to see you smiling."

Solona looked up to see Leliana in the doorway. She was wearing a simple pair of linen breeches and a linen shirt, her feet bare. Her lips were quirked in a half-smile, her arms folded across her chest as she leaned against the doorjamb. Her hair was damp, and she looked absolutely stunning.

"Good afternoon, Leliana," Solona greeted, getting up and sending Max out to relieve himself. The dog seemed to be more comfortable out of her sight since she'd found him in his adorable doggy-dream in the Fade. As she had suspected, the demon had had only the most tenuous of holds upon the dog; he had abandoned his meal and mating partner as soon as he had had a good sniff of Solona.

"Good afternoon, Solona."

"Did you bathe?"

"What?"

"Your hair is wet. Did the innkeeper find it in his heart to heat water for you?" She went to sit on her bed as she talked.

"Oh." Leliana pushed away from the door, going to sit on her own bed. "No, he did not. I found an isolated spot and went swimming in the lake. It is already so warm this afternoon. It is going to be a brutally hot summer."

"Joy of joys," Solona replied sarcastically, not really knowing where to take the conversation. It had been easy to show her affection, to comfort her, directly after their battle with Sloth, to pick her up and carry her out of that room with its awful stench. But now, far removed from those circumstances, she found it to be awkward. She didn't even know how well Leliana remembered her own Fade dream.

She was saved by Alistair, of all people. He came to stand hesitantly at the door, dressed in loose linen clothing of his own. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I… came to check on you. On both of you."

Solona smiled. "Sweet of you."

"Can- can I come in?"

Solona looked at Leliana. "Sure, if Leliana doesn't mind." Leliana just shook her head, not looking at Solona. The mage looked back to Alistair. "Sure, come in. Just, don't let Morrigan see you sit on her bed." Her lips quirked up in a grin.

"Right, maybe I'll just sit next to you. I'd rather like to keep the skin on my face, if it's all the same to you."

Solona laughed outright. Oh, but it did feel good to be able to laugh. Maybe her lack of cheerfulness wasn't going to be permanent.

"First Max, now Alistair," Leliana said, sounding amused. "Is it something about the male species that can get you to smile?" Solona looked up to see Leliana's expression was just as amused as her tone.

"Well, sure," she responded, glancing sidelong at Alistair. "They just look so funny."

"Ouch!" Alistair smiled as Leliana let out a refreshing laugh. As somber as Solona had been after the Tower was freed, Leliana had been more so. Solona realized that she had missed the bell-like quality of the woman's laugh.

"I'm actually glad that you are here, Alistair." Leliana shifted uncomfortably. "I… had something to tell the both of you. I was not completely honest with you before. But now that Solona has seen some of the truth in the Fade, well… at first, it was self-preservation, the reason I have not spoken of my past. But I find that, in truth, I have feared how you would judge me for it."

"Well… what is it?" Alistair sat forward, his face and posture all concern.

"I… am not a minstrel. I sing, and play the lute, that much is true. I have entertained at parties, and traveled quite widely while I was in Orlais. But in Orlais, there is a difference between a minstrel and a bard. A bard is… like an assassin, perhaps? Though not like Zevran. A bard is a political weapon employed by every single Orlesian noble."

"I have read of these," Solona said, remembering back to her readings on the Orlesian political system. "You would perform the deeds that polite Orlesian society deemed improper for the nobles to perform outright? Something like that?"

Leliana nodded. "Precisely. My weapons, in addition to blades and arrows, were subterfuge and seduction. I played the Game, and I was good at it. I enjoyed doing something I was good at, and never once questioned the morality of what I was doing. I was… young. And foolish, and bored with the life of being the ward of a noble. I was never fully considered a noble, being adopted by Lady Cecilie but born to a commoner from another country. But I was not home among the commoners of Orlais, either – I knew too much of nice things to feel truly at home, nor did I wish to  _be_  at home among them. I was not a noble, nor a peasant, nor a servant. I… had no place. Not until Marjolaine."

Leliana paused, looking between them before she continued. "I met a woman at a party, a retired bard married to an elderly nobleman. We… became lovers…" Leliana was getting visibly agitated as she spoke, fidgeting in her seat, avoiding both their gazes. At her final confession, it seemed she could no longer sit still, standing abruptly and beginning to pace the room.

Solona, for her part, wasn't surprised by this, not after what she had witnessed in Leliana's dream, but she hoped hearing it would clear some things for her. She was surprised, or at the very least  _very interested_ , at the last confession, however.  _They were lovers_? The thoughts this produced in her head were dizzying, as well as guilt-inducing. Looking at Alistair, she could see that he had much the same reaction.

As Leliana paced – still not meeting either of their gazes – she continued. "She took me under her wing, trained me to sing and flirt, and later to seduce and kill. I was very young when I met her, barely considered an adult, and I… I would have done anything for her." Her voice was growing thick, like she was talking around a lump in the back of her throat – which, Solona realized with a pang of guilt, she probably was.

"After her husband died, she moved me into her home, lavished me with attention, and turned me into her... pet. And I was happy to play this part, so in love with her was I." Her tone was getting hard; she was clearly judging herself far harsher than Solona or Alistair ever would. "She became my bard-master, I her student. I… did so many things I am not proud of. I am ashamed by my own enjoyment of the Game, and of Marjolaine's cruelty, toward me, and toward others."

Solona sat up as realization suddenly struck. "That was the woman? Beside us on the bed?" She ignored the way Alistair's eyebrows shot up in surprise in response to her question.

Leliana's blue eyes snapped to Solona's grey ones, a look of shock, then resignation, flitting through them. She merely nodded once before shifting her gaze away again, continuing her pacing. "I loved her so, but, as it turned out, she did not return my affection to the degree I thought." She paused, took a deep breath, and continued. "A job went… bad. There was a man I was sent to kill. I was to bring her everything on his person. My curiosity eventually got the better of me, and I opened the sealed documents, only to find that Marjolaine was selling state secrets."

Alistair let out a low whistle. Solona could only agree. She wasn't a statesman, had never been involved in any kind of governing, but she was incredibly well read. She understood, at least academically, the severity of treason, and that was exactly what this Marjolaine had been dabbling in.

Leliana nodded in response to Alistair. "I went to her, begged her to reconsider what she was doing. I was not concerned over the treason, you see, simply frightened over what might happen to her if she were caught. She was angry with me, we fought, but eventually she gave in, and arranged for me to return the documents. Only, there was a full compliment of chevaliers waiting for me, and when they opened the documents, they had been altered to show that  _I_  had been selling Orlesian royal secrets."

"Oh Maker," Solona breathed, unable to keep herself from commenting. That kind of betrayal was unthinkable. And Solona saw no good reason for it. Surely, even if you were angry with a lover, or an employee, that level of punishment was far beyond the scope of rationality? What her own parents had done to her due to their fear of magic seemed good and right in comparison.

"Indeed. When I would not confess, they gave me very compelling reasons to do so. When I continued to maintain my innocence, they turned to torture, and… well. They were not kind."

Silence reigned after that. Leliana finally settled over at the window, looking out upon the lake. Solona didn't know what to say or do. She was not stupid; she knew what unpleasantness Leliana was alluding to when she said the chevaliers had not been kind. Alistair got up quietly, walking over to her and tentatively placing a hand on her shoulder. She visibly tensed, but relaxed after a moment, allowing the man to comfort her in this small way.

Solona scrunched up her brows, confused about something. "Leliana? Perhaps I am being insensitive, but how did you get out? How did you get from their custody to a tiny Chantry in Lothering?"

Leliana turned to face her, looking first up into Alistair's eyes, then around him to Solona. "Someone helped me escape. I did not know who she was at the time, nor why she helped me. But after some time I was led to a wagon instead of my cell, and was smuggled out buried under hay. When I went in, it was the beginning of winter. When I came out, the sun was shining and the trees were blooming. I can only assume I was in their custody for somewhere around four months, though I have no way to know for sure. It was certainly cold enough the entire time I was there." She placed a hand on Alistair's arm, giving him a weak smile in thanks, and walked back to her bed, sitting upon it and staring into her lap once more.

Solona got up, stopping Alistair with a hand on his arm. "Would you mind giving us some privacy?" He furrowed his eyebrows in concern while looking at Leliana, but when he looked back into Solona's eyes he nodded and moved out of the room.

The mage moved to Leliana's bed, sitting on the edge and looking at the bard. Leliana was sitting in a position of shame; there was no way to mistake her posture for anything else. Solona took a risk and reached over, plucking one of Leliana's hands out of her lap and threading their fingers. The bard allowed it, tightening her fingers within Solona's grasp, but keeping her gaze averted.

"Leliana," she tried, seeing if she couldn't coax the woman out. Her blue eyes flicked up to Solona's.

"I had hoped that the specter of you in my dream was not actually you," she said, her voice very quiet. She swallowed, meeting Solona's gaze fully as she elaborated. "I am… shamed by what you witnessed, Solona. I cannot imagine what you think of me. And I find that what you think of me is more important to me than perhaps it should be."

"Hey," Solona interjected, moving herself fully onto the bed and taking Leliana's other hand. "I do not think less of you, if that is what you're worried about. I'm sorry that I had such trouble rousing you from your fantasy. It… took me a while to figure out that I was playing a role in your dream, instead of playing the intruder." She searched the bard's eyes, hoping she wasn't treading into territory she should avoid.

Leliana looked away, trying to pull away, but Solona wouldn't let her. She firmed her grip on the bard's hands and pleaded, "Leliana, please. Look at me." The bard turned back to face her, tears swimming in her eyes, and before the mage woman knew it, the redhead had surged into her arms, gripping the back of Solona's shirt fiercely as she buried her face in its folds.

Great wracking sobs shook her body, her cries muffled by the fabric of Solona's tunic. Solona did her best to comfort the woman, wrapping her arms firmly around her, holding as much of the woman as she could. She made comforting noises, encouraging her to let it out, telling her that she didn't need to hold it in any longer. Solona had sobbed much like this after her Harrowing. Jowan had held her while she told him in sobbing gasps about her parents' betrayal; about having the templars hold her down and forcibly shave her head, not bothering to be gentle; about the pain of the tattoo biting into her face. He had held her like this, wrapping long, comforting arms around her shoulders and accepting her sorrow without any shame. So she knew the importance of having a rock in the storm of one's emotions.

It was several minutes before Leliana began to quiet, sniffling and whimpering lightly, the occasional sob interrupting her breathing, almost like a hiccup. Solona adjusted her hold on the woman, ending up with the bard cradled in her lap, cooing softly into her hair as she rocked gently. It felt incredibly intimate, and Solona wasn't sure she ever wanted to let go. So she didn't for the time being, staying put and rocking Leliana in her arms until she was no longer crying at all.

Leliana had relaxed completely into her arms, her head practically resting on the mage's breast. Solona took a chance and kissed the woman's now-dry hair, closing her eyes and breathing in her scent. When she pulled back, Leliana was looking up at her, and Solona was struck by how small, how vulnerable, she looked at that moment, her blue eyes so big and deep.

"Thank you," Leliana said, her voice somewhat hoarse from crying. "I never really got the chance to do that, even though this happened years ago."

Solona smiled. "I understand. Think nothing of it – I'd have to be completely stupid not to take advantage of the chance to hold such a beautiful woman in my arms," she blurted. She mentally kicked herself for it.  _Wrong time, Solona – definitely the wrong time for flirting! No matter that you_ _ **know**_ _she's interested!_

Leliana smiled almost bashfully, burying her face back where it had been. "Oh, Maker, I've completely soaked through your shirt!" The bard pulled back, pulling Solona's tunic away from her skin.

Solona just shook her head. "I don't care, Leliana. Just leave it."

She looked back up. "But, I-"

Solona cut her off gently with her lips. Perhaps it was the vague competition she was in with Alistair that prompted her forward, but she couldn't seem help herself; she had Leliana relaxed in her arms, had the woman's tears soaked into her shirt, was surrounded by her scent. It may have been the wrong time, but every fiber of her being was screaming at her to kiss this woman, and she was not strong enough to disobey.

In the grand scheme of things, that first kiss was a rather chaste one. But it was still a moment that stretched out into eternity. Leliana's lips were soft, her breath warm; she smelled of peppermint. She kissed Solona back immediately, parting her lips slightly so that the two of them fit together as if they were always meant to. She exhaled shakily through her nose, bathing the mage in her heady scent.

After a few eternities, Solona pulled away enough to look into Leliana's face. That first image of her, with her eyes closed and her lips barely parted, panting slightly, her head tiled just so, made Solona's heart absolutely melt. Then the bard's eyes opened and her lips curled up in a small smile, and the mage's heart soared into the sky. She felt herself grin, looking into Leliana's eyes as she cradled her close.

Leliana's fingers suddenly curled into the front of her tunic, pulling her closer. As their lips met with more fervor, her tongue darted out, tasting Solona's lips, prompting Solona to open her mouth and allow the bard to deepen the kiss. She groaned when she tasted the Leliana's tongue in her mouth – she tasted of peppermint, as well some other, nebulous, vaguely sweet taste that she could only describe as  _Leliana_. The redhead sucked on her lip, then darted her tongue out once more. Solona caught it, sucking on it lightly, prompting Leliana to whimper slightly.

The sounds and sensations assaulting Solona were causing a molten heat to begin to gather in the very center of her gut. Accompanying the heat, slick wetness was already beginning to pool between her legs, threatening to spill onto her smallclothes.

But then Leliana was moving, and Solona pulled back more forcefully than before, panic flaring through her chest as she loosened her grip. Had she done something wrong? Crossed some invisible threshold? Leliana's grip on her tunic only tightened, however, and the bard rearranged herself to be straddling the taller woman's lap, one linen-covered knee on either side of the mage's hips. The bard surged forward once more, her fingers gripping Solona's tunic tightly, pulling her into a searing kiss, the mage's sound of surprise swallowed by her mouth.

Apparently, Solona had done something very  _right_.

She wrapped her arms tightly around Leliana's waist, holding her as close as she could, probing tentatively into the bard's mouth with her tongue. Leliana almost growled in response, finally letting go of the mage's tunic in favor of threading her fingers into the short hair at the nape of Solona's neck. Solona thought she might melt from the feeling of Leliana sucking on her tongue, and the feeling of her gripping the mage's hips very tightly with her knees. Her arousal, having waned during her brief panic, was now back tenfold.

It was several minutes, or possibly several hours – Solona would never know – before there was a lull. Leliana pulled back only slightly, panting, and rested her forehead against Solona's, her hands loosening their hold only a little. Solona couldn't help herself; her face burst into a broad grin as she caught the bard's eyes.

"I have wanted to do that since I first saw you in my aunt's kitchen," Solona confessed, looking up into Leliana's face as the bard pulled back more fully, holding herself at arm's length from the mage. Solona slipped her hands to rest comfortably on the bard's hips.

"Well, I think our experience yesterday proved that that was not the first time I had thought of it," Leliana replied, flushing a little pinker. She leaned forward, resting her forehead on Solona's shoulder, tucking her arms in between them. "After Marjolaine, I swore off love. I never thought I could even be attracted to another person again, let alone trust them. I promised myself not to open up like that again, to be that open to betrayal."

Solona kissed her hair, cradling her head in the crook of her own neck. "And now?"

She could almost  _feel_  the bard's smirk. "I would very much like to get to know  _you_  better." Growing a little more serious, she nuzzled her face into Solona's throat, wrapping her arms around her chest. "I do not know what it is I feel, though I know enough to be certain it is beyond just a physical attraction…"

Solona sat still for a moment. She was pretty sure that was an invitation to clarify what this was, but for the life of her she didn't know the right answer. She suddenly understood why some men found women to be so infuriating; most men were very direct, and most women had learned _not_  to be. She decided to face it head on; she knew that's what  _she_  would appreciate if their positions had been reversed.

"I don't know what this is, either, Leliana." She tried to catch the bard's gaze. "But I'd like to find out what it  _could_  be. If you're willing."

The bard relaxed dramatically, melting into Solona's arms as she lifted her head. "I am more than willing, Solona."

The kiss that followed was long, slow, sensual; full of soft, malleable lips and slow, lazy movements of her tongue. Clearly, this woman had quite a bit to teach the mage, and Solona was sure she would pay more attention to these lessons than any she had ever had before in her life.


	10. Answers

Leliana stepped delicately off the ferry, two somewhat heavier sets of footfalls following her. She bid farewell to the ferryman, who tossed her a jovial wink and cast off from the island.

As she began to walk, a memory from a few days before came unbidden to her mind.

_Leliana's back hits the mattress._

_"Solona!" She can’t decide if she is incredulous at how fast the mage wants to move, or amused by her enthusiasm._

_The mage stops in her tracks, suspended above the bard. "Too much?"_

_Leliana shakes her head, wrapping her arms around the mage's shoulders to pull her close. She delights at the feel of the larger woman pressed against her, into her, a small moan escaping from her lips involuntarily. Her legs, still at Solona's hips, wrap around her waist and pulled her tighter. She presses her hips into the mage's, almost bucking herself up off the bed as she slides her tongue back into the mage's mouth._

_But then, all of a sudden, it is too much. She is being held down and hands are pulling at her clothes and she suddenly feels suffocated. She begins to push at Solona's shoulders as she tries not to hyperventilate._

_"Leliana?" Solona sits back, her concerned expression quickly transforming into one of shock. "Leliana!"_

_Leliana sits up, gulping down huge breaths, holding both hands to her chest. She closes her eyes and counts slowly to ten, as the Revered Mother at the Chantry in Lothering suggested when she woke from nightmares about the chevaliers. Which is what this was – just like those nightmares, only waking. Which is almost more terrifying. She hasn’t had those nightmares in more than a year. She would never have thought that it would come back to haunt her like this during her waking hours._

_But, then, she as not taken a lover since Marjolaine. The last person to touch her body was her captors._

_"I am… fine," she breathes as she opens her eyes. Solona sits on her knees before her, a look of downright worry on her face. She reminds herself that the mage is not going to hurt her._

_"That was stupid of me," the warden says, shaking her head. "If I flashed back from getting my hair cut, I can't imagine…" She makes a frustrated sound, scrubbing her hands through her short hair._

_Leliana reaches a hand out for the mage's shoulder. "Solona, please." The mage looks up, unknowingly giving Leliana the most puppy-dog of eyes, completely melting the bard's heart. "I am the foolish one. I should have known that I would not be ready."_

_"We don't have to-"_

_Leliana shushes her with a finger over her mouth. "Please, Solona. I am not ready **yet**. That does not mean I will  **never**  be ready. We have only known each other for a matter of weeks."_

_Solona nods, her eyes large and very serious. "I can wait as long as you wish, as long as you need." She looks down into her lap. "I can't imagine the emotional up-and-down you just went through this afternoon. I'm sorry I decided to kiss you right after you cried your eyes out."_

_Leliana smiles, putting a finger under the mage's chin and turning her so they face each other once more. " **I**  am rather happy that you did. Now, please. Hold me a while; let us just be here. As you say, it has been a rather emotional afternoon, and I think we could both use some simple comfort."_

_She draws the mage into her arms, lying back while guiding the other woman's head to her shoulder. Solona presses her face into Leliana's neck and her body into the bard's side, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling them tightly together._

_"Thank you," she whispers._

_Solona lifts her head enough to look into Leliana's eyes. "For what?"_

_Leliana smiles warmly. "For not turning me away, my warden."_

_The mage smiles. "I'm not sure I could ever do that, Leliana. I fear you may have already captured my heart."_

A smile came to her lips at the memory of those words. It had been three days since the tension between she and Solona had so spectacularly come to a head. They had stolen whatever moments they could for themselves, which usually resulted in a very long walk – they agreed that they wanted to keep this to themselves, for now, and therefore should not risk Morrigan catching them at it in their shared room – and a lot of heated kissing against the trees in the woods. In between, they had gotten to know each other a little better, speaking of small things, and laughing a lot.

It had been wonderful. She'd only ever had one true lover before: Marjolaine, who had been older than her, and her employer, of a sort. It had left their relationship… unbalanced, to say the least. And in the end, the woman had completely betrayed her, revealing her love to have been a farce, or at least less important than Marjolaine’s playing of the Game. Leliana did not want to make a similar mistake by moving too quickly with Solona. Even when she used to seduce a target, she was usually the younger one, playing the inexperienced girl taken by the charming nobleman – or noblewoman. Now,  _she_  was the experienced – and tainted – one, and she didn't know quite how to handle herself in this new role. Time could only help in that regard.

"You really didn't need to come all the way over here to deliver lunch, Leliana." Alistair had the sack in his hands that she had intended to bring to the mages, who had holed themselves up in the library, looking for information on what might be happening to Solona.

"It is alright, Alistair. The inn has gotten dull, and I did not wish to take my midday meal in the common room with strangers once more. With Sten having disappeared and you and Morrigan braving the Tower, my only company is Zevran, here." Sten had expressed his distaste for staying indoors, for the press of people around him, so he had said he would be in the woods, by himself, and would check in with them in a week.

"You wound me, Lady!" She looked to Zevran, her other companion on the ride over, but he simply winked.

She giggled. "Yes, Zevran, I tire of your endless lechery. Perhaps if you would speak to me of something else, I might not avoid your company, _non_?"

"I see. Well, I shall have to think on this. You are proving to be a most difficult woman to get into my bed."

"I don't understand how you don't find him offensive," Alistair said to her, though he was scowling at Zevran.

Zevran winked again. "I can shift my attention to  _you_ , if you like?"

Leliana laughed at the immediate look of shock on the warden's face. "Alistair, I do not find him offensive because he employs the same tactics that I once used to disrupt and disarm. And they work. Look at you."

Zevran's eyebrows crept up. "So you told them?"

Alistair scowled for another moment before a look of comprehension, and then hurt, crossed over his face. "Wait. You told  _him_  before you told us?"

"Alas, no," Zevran answered for her. "I figured it out all on my own. In addition to being so handsome, I am also clever. And very good in bed," he added with yet another wink.

Alistair considered the man next to him for a moment. "Does- does that really work? With women?"

Leliana stifled a laugh. Oh, but his innocence was precious. And refreshing.

Zevran nodded before he answered the other man. "Indeed, with women, and with men. Though I admit I am a bit pickier when it comes to which men I will take to my bed. Too many of them think they can throw me around and have their way with me simply because I am an elf and smaller than they are."

Alistair gaped like a fish at this response. Leliana thought she would save him. "You see what it is like for so many women, then."

Zevran's face grew surprisingly serious. "Yes, Leliana, I do." It was quite possibly the first time he had addressed her by name. "I have had too many men try to take advantage of me because of their superior size. It has taught me a great deal about the absolute  _shit_  deal most women have gotten as their lot in life. I try to treat the women I choose to spend my time with accordingly, though that hardly makes up for it."

Leliana was completely taken aback. "I- well… Thank you, Zevran."

"No need, Lady. I only wish I could do something to change it on a grander scale."

"Teach your sons and daughters, should you have any, and you will have done your job in that regard," she answered, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder with a smile. They continued on in silence, being escorted to the library by a templar on the first floor.

Morrigan and Wynne sat at a table with Irving, each poring over a large tome.

"Good day," she greeted, placing the sack Alistair had been carrying on the table before them. "We thought we would bring a meal to you, as the Tower's supplies are still quite meager."

Wynne smiled up to her. "That is very kind, Leliana, dear. Thank you."

Leliana smiled back. "It is no trouble." She looked around. "But where is our fearless warden?"

Morrigan's yellow eyes narrowed at her, but she did not speak. Leliana wondered if the mage knew of her and Solona's tryst?

Irving answered her. "She is taking a break with her beast, entertaining the children while the apprentices see to their studies. You saved quite a few of our number, but they are still recovering from their ordeal, and seeing to the children's education by the senior mages is somewhat impossible until they recover fully."

"I, myself, am surprised to see you up and about, ser. How is it that you are not recovering with them?"

"He  _should_  be," Wynne answered, her eyes narrowed at the First Enchanter, even while she smiled at him. "But Solona was his apprentice, and he says he feels obligated to help. He wanted to engage her with spells, but I put my foot down. He is not recovered enough to be wielding magic so."

"I see. Well, I will leave you to your meal and see if I can find Solona, let her know there is a meal waiting."

"Alright, dear. She and the children should be in one of the rooms off the hall." Wynne pointed Leliana in the direction of one of the doors off the library. She thanked her and moved on, listening as both Alistair and Zevran offered their help in the search through the books.

Leliana didn't see anyone when she entered the hallway. She peeked her head into a great room, overturned beds and smashed furniture still adorning most of it. Some bunks had been restored to their original function, however, and been set up along a far wall. From what she remembered, this was the floor where the apprentices normally slept.

Her train of thought was interrupted when a hand clamped down over her mouth, another snaking around her waist and pulling her backward. She was yanked against a body and pulled to the floor, behind a wrecked bunk, unable to make a sound for the hand so tight against her mouth. When she looked up, however, she saw that it was Solona atop whose body she had landed, and she immediately relaxed into the woman's embrace.

Solona winked and moved her head to indicate the far side of the room. A child was checking underneath the bunks on the far wall, finally giving up and moving out of the room after a few minutes. Solona chuckled quietly and let go of Leliana.

"Sorry about that," she whispered. "You were going to give away my cover if I didn't silence you."

Leliana raised a brow. "How could you say that? I was a bard – I am very good at sneaking."

Solona wrapped her arms loosely around Leliana's waist. "I'm sure you are. But it has been a long time. Perhaps you have lost your touch?"

Leliana squawked indignantly, turning in the mage's arms and slapping her lightly on the arm. "You are horrible!"

Solona just chuckled again. "You don't think you've lost your touch?"

Leliana narrowed her eyes. "I can prove it to you."

She was already straddling the mage's lap; leaning forward and kissing her took little extra effort. Solona hummed in approval, closing her eyes and moving her hands to the bard's hips. A gentle pressure on her shoulders caused the mage to half-lie back against an overturned trunk, Leliana following to keep their kiss from breaking. She sighed into the taller woman, feeling her long arms wrap around her waist and pull her close, feeling her warm tongue delicately probe against her lips. Leliana gladly opened her mouth further, allowing the mage to slide her tongue in, delighting at that taste of tea and honey that filled her mouth along with the mage's tongue.

She pulled back after a moment, still pressed quite close to the mage, and opened her eyes. She found Solona looking at her with a smirk, her eyes twinkling in the dim room. She couldn't help it; she started giggling. Solona took that opportunity to dig her fingers into the bard's ribs, causing her to laugh outright, Solona joining her.

"Oh! You are... so… dead…" Leliana gasped, trying desperately to break free and away from those wicked fingers.

"It's not hiding if you give it away, Solona," a small voice announced. Solona stopped immediately, sitting up with Leliana still straddling her lap. Leliana twisted to find the boy from their day saving the Tower standing in the doorway.

"Sorry, Robert. I, uh, got distracted." Leliana stifled a laugh at Solona's response.

"What were you doing?" He had his hands clasped before him, twisting one way and then the other as he stood, eyeing them intently.

"We were, uh…"

"She pulled me to the floor and started tickling me," Leliana answered, saving Solona the trouble, and conveniently leaving out all the kissing.

Robert narrowed his eyes. "It's not nice to hold someone down while you do that, Solona."

"You're right, Robert. I'm sorry."

Suddenly, Leliana was being lifted. She let out a small yelp, unsure of what was going on, before she was set down on her feet. Solona had apparently stood up with the bard in her arms.

"There, all better."

Robert nodded, trotted forward, and touched the mage's hip. "Got you."

"Damn it all…"

"Language, Solona!" She slapped the mage playfully on the arm. "Come. I came over here to bring you lunch. It is waiting in the library."

"Food?!" The mage picked up the boy and placed him on her hip. "You know how I feel about food."

Leliana smirked. "Yes. But Alistair is in there eating right now, so I would hurry, or there might not be anything left."

"You hear that, Robert? Alistair's a big pig and might eat all the food."

"Hey, I heard that!" They had passed into the library, within earshot of Alistair and the others.

"If it makes you feel any better, Alistair, Solona could keep up with you bite for bite, and frequently does," Leliana countered, giving the mage a playful shove. Solona turned a wounded look on her for all of a second before breaking into a grin and trotting the rest of the way to the table.

They ate their meal jovially enough, though Leliana noticed that Morrigan barely touched her own portion, electing to move to the very end of the table so she could continue reading. The tome she read looked familiar, but Leliana couldn't figure out why. The other children were on the far side of the room, being entertained by Max, who seemed to have a boundless energy. Robert trotted off to play with them, explaining that the children had already been fed.

After they had all slowed down some, Alistair asked the question of the hour. "So. Find anything new today?"

"Frustratingly little," Solona said with a sigh.

"That's not true," Irving countered. "We found a great deal Tevinter’s reaction to these arcane warriors. And we learned that that’s what they were called."

"Yes, yes, but nothing on who they were, nor the history of them, why they’re no longer around. And _nothing_ on how it works, how I'm supposed to…  _use_  it!" Solona abandoned her food, getting up from the table to begin pacing.

"Hey, there's a name for it! That's more than we knew before we came here," Alistair pointed out. Solona just narrowed her eyes at him and continued with her pacing.

"All of you  _saw_  this happen?" Wynne eyes tracked Solona's movements as she spoke.

"Yes," Alistair answered. "We were all there. Zevran here was unlucky enough to be the subject of it."

"He was?" Wynne's head came around to stare at the elf.

Zevran, to his credit, looked only a little uncomfortable. "Yes, I was…"

"Zevran joined our group in an extremely…  _unusual_  way," Leliana supplied.

"Oh?" Irving raised an eyebrow. "And how was that?"

"He tried to kill us," Alistair said.

Both senior mages' jaws dropped at that one.

"Oh, he didn't succeed! Obviously…" Alistair's face grew a little flush.

"And it was nothing personal," Zevran qualified, taking a sip from a wineskin. "I was merely hired by this Loghain to take care of the two remaining wardens."

Wynne spluttered for a moment. "He- he tried to assassinate you, and your solution was to let him  _join_  your group?!"

Alistair sighed. "I know. I didn't like it at first, either. But so far, he's been a very good companion to have around. Lots of skills you wouldn't think would be useful, and then suddenly you need someone who can fix the yoke for the donkey with only a dagger. Things like that."

"Plus, if I am with you, Loghain cannot find me and torture me for information on where you are," Zevran supplied, biting off another hunk of bread.

"I suppose…" Wynne still looked dubious.

Irving looked to Leliana. "So this assassination attempt. This is when Solona fell into her spell?"

She nodded. "Yes, ser. She tripped a wire trap, and her body was consumed with fire. But a moment later she was on her feet, and her injuries were mending themselves. She was…" She didn't know how to finish.

"Scary," Alistair cut in. "It was creepy. She was moving faster than I've ever seen a person move, and her eyes were glowing. She knocked down eight men with some kind of shock wave, caved in someone's skull with just her staff, and then set a man on fire."

"She didn't just set him on fire," Morrigan finally piped up from down the length of the table, not looking up from her book. "She incinerated him in less than five seconds. 'Twas quite incredible, if a tad bit of an overkill."

Solona snorted, then finished the explanation of what happened. "Then I was facing Zevran. He… threw a blade at me, and I caught it. In mid-air; I still don't know how I did that. Then it was flaming and buried in his shoulder."

"Like I said," Alistair chuckled. "Scary."

"I didn't realize my eyes were glowing or anything like that." Solona came to a halt, her eyebrows knitted as she addressed Alistair.

"Yeah, it was really creepy. And you had this vaguely maniacal grin on your face the whole time."

"Do you remember all of it, child?" Irving's face spoke only of concern.

Solona nodded. "I remember everything, Irving. It was… strange. It was a little like being in the Fade. The way my vision – and time – was distorted."

Irving pondered this, asking seemingly insignificant details, getting answers that only furrowed his brows even further. Finally, after several minutes, he seemed to straighten up.

"I will think on this the rest of the day. You should all take a break, get some rest, maybe participate in a little recreation – we've read all there is to read on this subject. Feel free to use the library if you wish. I will be in my study. If you would accompany me, Wynne?" He got up from the table.

"Certainly, Irving. It was a pleasure dining with you all," she turned on them with a pleasant smile. Her brows knit when her gaze landed on Zevran, however.

They retreated to Irving's study immediately.

"I do not think she likes me very much," Zevran commented, draining the wineskin he'd claimed for himself.

"Can you blame her? You  _did_  try to kill me. Never mind that I completely kicked your ass," Solona smirked.

"Yes,  _señorita_ , but only when you were lost in your arcane warrior trance. Until you can call it up at will, I am still a more capable fighter than you. I would be happy to help you improve, though."

Solona groaned. "More sparring? Really?"

Leliana interrupted whatever Zevran was going to say in response. "I'm sorry, but when did we decide that this was something we wanted her to do more often?"

Alistair just looked at her blankly, as did Solona. "What do you mean?"

Leliana sighed. "Perhaps I am being overly cautious, but what if it is dangerous? What if it invites…" She couldn't finish it, not here, not in this place where the mages were only ever under suspicion.

Morrigan knew, however, looking up from her tome with narrowed eyes. "You think it will call a demon among us." It was not a question. She got up from her perch and stalked closer. "The Chantry twit thinks that just because it cannot be explained means that it is evil and the work of demons? Color me surprised." The last was said slowly, full of sarcasm and hostility.

Leliana shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to meet either Morrigan's or Solona's gaze. "I just think we should seek to understand it before we decide whether we should encourage it or not."

"Yes, because  _you_  are the perfect person to decide what a mage should or should not do with her power. That is certainly what the Chantry has decided. And now, here are all these mages, trapped willingly in this prison because they have been convinced that their power is evil and will call demons to possess them." As she spoke, she stalked closer and closer, finally coming to stand before Leliana, her eyes narrowed, one hand on her staff and the other on her hip.

Leliana continued to stare into her lap in shame. Morrigan was right, of course. Leliana feared the arcane arts, even as she sought to better understand Solona. She just didn't understand all the distinctions that were being made, between this kind of magic and that kind of magic. She'd been instructed that the use of magic invited demonic possession, and the thought of that happening to Solona frightened her beyond measure.

Morrigan suddenly moved away with a huff of disgust, gathering up her book and moving to another table.

Leliana couldn't lift her eyes. She was having the sudden realization that she was no better than the people who sought to imprison the mages. She sought safety from their power, rather than trying to understand it. The slick, hot feeling of shame spread through her.

"Leliana." Solona's voice was soft, not hard and angry like she would have expected. Leliana looked up to find Solona's eyes radiating concern. "Leliana, what is bothering you?"

"I… it is nothing. Morrigan just made me realize something. I… need to go for a walk." She got up. "I will be outside should you need me." She could feel Solona's eyes on her as she left the room, but she didn't beckon her. She needed some time alone, to think, to examine some of these preconceived notions she clearly held.

Leliana sat at the water's edge, her bare feet lapped gently by the water. She was giving her conversation with Morrigan a lot of thought. And she had just grudgingly admitted that the caustic mage had been correct – ultimately, because she did not understand magic, and feared it, Leliana wanted it locked away from the world.

It hadn't bothered her much before the Tower, because aside from Solona's first trip into arcane warrior territory, they hadn't had need of either mage's powers for anything other than starting their evening fires. Which meant that she hadn't seen either mage's powers used in battle. Now, though, she'd seen more of what they could do, what damage they could cause – and the danger demons posed – than she ever thought possible. It frightened her more than anything else had ever frightened her before.

What if a demon possessed Solona? Or Morrigan? There was no surefire way to avoid it – the Chantry had at least taught her  _that_  much about magic. That was why mages were kept in the Circle. It was a sheltered environment, where they could learn of their powers, and grow in them, and if someone fell to a demon, they were kept away from the rest of the world, to keep everyone safe.

When she met Solona, and the woman spoke of the injustices done her, Leliana hadn't questioned it. Somehow, possibly because of her distance from it, Solona's plight and the Chantry's teachings were  _both_  correct in her mind. It wasn't until she got here that she was forced to somehow reconcile the two. Clearly, she was not doing a good job of it. Solona was right to be angry at how she'd been treated by the Circle her entire life, and yet given what she'd seen in the Tower, Leliana could easily see the justification for that treatment. But would Uldred have gone so bad if he hadn't been so desperate to find a way out of his captivity?

"Leliana?"

Her head whipped around to find Alistair only ten feet or so down the shore. That he'd been able to sneak up on her spoke to how distracted she was by her musings.

"Hello, Alistair."

"I thought, maybe…" He shrugged. "You could use some company? Maybe you'd like to insult Morrigan a little bit?"

Leliana let out a soft chuckle, closing her eyes and gathering her knees to her chest. She sighed and shook her head. "She was right, Alistair. I fear I do not understand what is happening to your fellow warden. It… frightens me." She placed her chin on her knees, closing her eyes so she did not need to look at the pitying look on his face. Damn him; she did not deserve sympathy, nor did she need it.

"It's a frightening prospect, especially if you haven't spent a lot of time around magic. If you weren't frightened, I'd think you were crazy. Well, crazi _er_. There is that whole  _vision_  thing."

Leliana's eyes snapped open, her body unfurling as she turned to him. "What?! She told you?!"

"Oh. Right." He sighed. "Yes, she did. Sorry about that. Neither Morrigan nor I were convinced about your reasons for wanting to join us, so Solona told us what you told her about your vision while you were off bathing that first night." He scrubbed his hand over the back of his head.

Leliana couldn't believe it. She would have told them all about it herself, but Solona had asked her not to say anything. And then she went and told them about it while she was bathing in the river? They must have thought her mad…

"Oh, Maker. Look, I'm sorry. It was fine. Morrigan wrote you off as crazy, and I… well, I grew up in the Chantry. I understand that faith looks different to different people." He walked up to her, squatting in front of her. "I don't know what you saw, but Solona said you described the feeling of the Blight pretty well, and then you saw some kind of vision of hope; and, well, you don't seem insane to  _me_ , so I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt." Leliana looked away, but Alistair's hand caught her cheek, gently turning her to face him. "I'm glad I did, Leliana. Morrigan's just a grumpy witch-thief from the swamp who doesn't know how to hold a conversation without pissing someone off. Ignore her. Please."

Leliana sighed, taking his hand from her face and lowering it gently. "I'm not that upset. Not about you knowing, anyway. I mean, Solona is  _so_ going to pay for that, but I'm honestly glad it's out there. I'm upset because, after everything Solona has said, everything she has told me about her time with the Circle, Morrigan's right – I  _would_  prefer if she didn't do anything that might invite a demon. And that's not fair to her. Clearly she is quite capable. But in my ignorance of magic, I fear it, just as the Chantry has taught me. And that makes me feel… terrible. And gullible. And also just a little bit like maybe she's not telling the full story about her time here."

Alistair sighed heavily, settling himself on the ground next to her. "She is, and she isn't, if that makes sense."

Leliana's brows knit. "No. It makes no sense at all."

Alistair was quiet a moment, chewing on his lip as he thought. "It's like… she's telling the truth, according to her. She's telling it how she saw it, how she experienced it. But the Chantry, the Templar Order, wouldn't see her truth. If you were to ask that ass Cullen the truth, his version would be very different from hers.  _He_  would tell you about how she ignored his affections in favor of another man here, a mage who she helped escape once she was returned to the Circle. He would tell you all about how she loved that man, cried into his arms because she resented the protection the Circle – and Cullen, by extension – offered her."

"You asked him this?"

Alistair nodded. "I did. I was intrigued by his admission of his love for her, and by how quickly it fled when he got a good look at who she _actually_  is, now that she is not his ward. I found it… interesting, how quickly the stars in his eyes faded when she took charge of things. Unfortunately, I saw that kind of thing a lot when I was training. The templars, especially the younger of the men… tend to view mages as children that must mind them. It's like they don't see them as capable, because they must be watched in the Tower."

"That's… I don't even know what to think of that."

Alistair shrugged. "It's unfortunate. Mages are people. Obviously." He smiled. "Templars are screened for this opinion, and those who take this view don't often make it to the Circle. They're usually sent to be part of the templar unit assigned to various Chantries around Ferelden, hunting apostates. But sometimes they slip through."

"Why aren't they allowed here?"

"Oh, it's not out of  _respect_  for the mages." Alistair seemed almost contemptuous. "No, it's because those templars who view the mages with that kind of pity tend to be the ones to accidentally father children with them."  He made a disgusted noise.  “We must keep our distance, you see.”

"Oh… I see." Leliana still didn't know what to think. It was interesting, certainly, but she was having a hard time figuring why Alistair was sharing all this information with her.

"Anyway, the point is that she's not wrong, but even she doesn't see all of it. She sees a prison that justifies its treatment of mages because of Andraste rising up against Tevinter. In reality, it's justified because of what we saw when we freed the Tower. Imagine that unleashed among the regular citizenry." He captured a blade of grass, pulling it from the ground and toying with it. "The Chantry is so scared of magic. And it trickles down, to make every believer afraid of magic.  _I_  was scared of magic until Duncan recruited me. I didn't learn all of the rest of what I just told you – or at least, not in the greater context – until he told me he wanted to recruit at the Circle next. We argued and argued, and along the way, he got me to see the injustice done to people who just happen to be born with an incredible gift. A gift, as well as a great burden." He lifted the blade of grass between his hands and blew through it, making it whistle shrilly.

"So… you think magic is not dangerous?"

"Oh, it's dangerous. But, so am I. And so are you. Not to point fingers – and perhaps this is an insensitive example – but how many lives did you potentially ruin as a bard?"

Leliana furrowed her brows, ready immediately to defend herself. But he cut her off before she could. "My point is that Solona has only ever helped people, and killed darkspawn and abominations, and yet the templars here  _still_  treat her as though she's a rabid dog, just waiting for her to go mad and strike, because of all that I just told you. Sure, she's dangerous, but so are we, and we don't receive that kind of treatment. We're allowed to make our own choices, and to pay for the consequences should we make poor decisions. Hell, Zevran gets paid to do the things that make him dangerous. And Loghain is even more dangerous – his political sway is what convinced Uldred to attempt the coup of the Tower. And he's a damned  _hero_."

"I… think I see your point." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, Alistair. You are a very good friend."

He smiled, putting a hand on her knee in return. "I'm glad I could help, Leliana. Just, don't tell Morrigan anything of what I said. I think her world might just explode if she knew I was on her side."

Leliana chuckled, lowering her hand into her lap and looking over the water. It was incredibly peaceful like this. She suddenly wished to go swimming, but thought that would be incredibly unfair to poor Alistair if she were to begin stripping right here. Not to mention the fact she wished to bare herself to no one. Maybe tomorrow, if the weather held. She looked up to the sky, noting that it likely would not hold, not with the gathering clouds on the horizon. Well, maybe later that afternoon, then.

"Thank you, Alistair. Shall we go back inside? See what they have gotten up to without us?"

He smiled, standing and dusting off his breeches. "Yes, let's." He held a hand out to help her to her feet, and, after grabbing her shoes, they went back into the Tower in search of their companions.

"So… what happened between you and Morrigan today?"

Solona had asked that earlier, but Leliana had quickly hushed her, promising an explanation later, when they were alone.

Which they now were.

They walked side-by-side in the woods, close enough to the inn that they could be heard should they shout for help, but far enough away to be reasonably sure of some privacy. Their hands were clasped, and they simply walked slowly, meandering along a goat trail they had walked many times over the last few nights.

The problem was, Leliana still didn't know how to articulate her answer in a way that wouldn't upset the mage. And they were far too newly intimate for her to just barrel right through and see what happened on the other side. No, this required a delicacy that she had not used in a very long time.

She decided to approach it by seeming to change the subject. "Did I ever tell you why I wear my hair so much shorter than most women?" she asked, knowing full well that she had not – they hadn't exactly done a whole lot of talking of weighty things over the last couple of days. It served to divert the directness that Solona tended to bring to the conversation, however.

Solona shook her head, eyes showing her confusion. "No, you haven't…"

"When I was taken captive, the first thing the chevaliers did to me was to cut my hair." She felt Solona's hand grip hers more tightly. "It was so beautiful, Solona. I was so  _proud_  of it. I knew that I was a beautiful woman – and I knew how to enhance my beauty to capture the attention of anyone I cared to – but my hair was something that took time. It was a project, and it was oddly one of my greatest weapons, because it was so subtle."

Solona's brow furrowed in that adorable way she had. "How is long red hair subtle?"

"I am not sure what makes it so alluring, but I suspect that it has something to do with the intimacy of being able to touch it, run it through your fingers, and the closeness that doing so would require. And long hair over bare shoulders calls to mind indecent thoughts,  _non_?" She winked at Solona, the mage smiling at her playfulness.

She grew serious once more as she continued, however. "They cut it all off. Oh, Solona, I could swear that it  _hurt_  at the time, though I know that it was just my pride. They cut it off in great chunks, letting it fall before my eyes."

An image flashed through her mind, of her beautiful strands – more than two feet long – falling over her face, sticking to cheeks wet with her tears, falling into her open mouth as she sobbed. She was unable to do anything to sweep it away, her hands shackled behind her back as they were. It did not stop her from trying, however. Her struggling had gained her more than one ringing blow to the face.

"They left it like that, all uneven, parts of my scalp showing, some hair as long as a few inches. To shame me. To mar my beauty. I was a vain woman, Solona. They knew what my hair meant to me, what it meant to an Orlesian woman, and they knew just how to unhinge me that first day."

Solona stopped their walk, turning concerned eyes on the bard. "Leliana, I… I don't even know what to say. I'm so sorry." She took the bard's other hand, interlacing their fingers and just standing there, looking down at her with that pitying look. "But… you said there was a reason you wear it short now?"

Leliana nodded, smiling sadly. "Yes. I never want to be that girl again. I was so vain, so stupidly proud of my hair, of my looks. When they took those things away from me, and I still would not sign their confession, they took more things from me. I was denied my clothing, food, even a blanket to sleep with. They would not give me anything to drink, and then torture me by submerging me until just before I drowned. They whipped me, beat me, prodded me with hot irons."

She gulped, not willing to stop now, or she would not be able to get through it. Maker, but she hadn't thought it would be so much more difficult to say these things aloud than it was to think of them. She continued in a whisper

"They… forced themselves on me, as you know. I am marked, Solona, in so many places, in so many ways. I wear my hair short, because I cannot stand to resemble the girl Marjolaine betrayed. I cannot bear to remind myself of her. I am ashamed of her."

"Maker, Leliana…" The mage let go of her hands, drawing her in to an embrace that Leliana was all too glad to accept. She gripped the mage's tunic tightly, willing the tears away.

She continued, voice muffled by the fabric of Solona's shirt. "It was a sister of the Chantry that helped me to escape. She snuck me onto the wagon that was leaving to take her back to her little border Chantry. She nursed me back to health, spread ointments and oils into the scars as they healed, told me stories of the Maker and Andraste. She even had a lute that she lent to me."

She smiled into the mage's tunic, taking a deep breath and turning her head so that her cheek rested just above the mage's breast. Solona was swaying with her, and she enjoyed the slow rocking feeling. "I would play for her – it was the only thing I could possibly offer in repayment. And when I was fully healed, I left her, slipping across the border with the weapons I have now, a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a few silvers to my name."

She pulled away, swiping at the few tears that had escaped, looking up into Solona's face with another sad smile. She took the other woman's hands, squeezing them a moment before beginning their walk once more, gently tugging Solona until she walked by her side.

"When I wandered into Lothering I attended a service at their Chantry – I was wistful, and missed the woman in Orlais whose company I spent the better part of six months in. Mother Dorothea, Revered Mother of the Chantry in Valence. Anyway, I felt a calling in Lothering, a deep need to serve the Maker, to fill the hole left in my heart from my sinful past, as well as a place to hide from it, and after a day or two of speaking with the Revered Mother there, I chose to stay."

She was quiet for a minute or two, wandering aimlessly, hand-in-hand with Solona. The mage was silent. Leliana wondered what she might be thinking, but appreciated the chance to collect her thoughts. After a few more minutes, she continued.

"I'm telling you this because I realized something today." She took a deep breath and soldiered on. "My time at the Chantry was… restorative. The excitement I so craved when I played The Game was replaced by my faith in the Maker. But I also learned all the Chantry had to teach lay people, and I was present at every service. I took the things they said as fact, and didn't give the things I'd never experienced for myself a lot of thought."

She hesitated before continuing. "I never questioned that the treatment mages receive is anything but fair and just. Why would I ever doubt a place that only ever served the people, performed good deeds? That saved me from myself, from Marjolaine's cruelty? I knew only good men among the templars there – there was no Gregoir or Cullen among them. And the Revered Mother was my rock, requiring nothing of me and giving me everything in return."

Solona looked at her with a scowl, but said nothing, and made no move to pull away from her. Leliana took that as a good sign, but rushed forward before it could change. "When I heard your story, I considered it separate. It never occurred to me that the Chantry that had only served the power of good in my life was the same that called for your seclusion from society. I did not realize it, in fact, until we were here. Morrigan's words earlier made me truly realize how much I took the Chantry's words as a matter of course, at least as far as magic is concerned. I was… afraid, that harnessing your gifts would call a demon among us. And I cannot bear the thought of you turning into one of those creatures, Solona. It is not something I could possibly hope to protect you from, and helplessness is not a condition I can suffer easily. I have too much experience with it."

It had taken her a while, but she had arrived at her point, in a way that had at least not sent Solona immediately running from her side. It took all of Leliana's restraint to keep from trying to fill the silence as they walked, letting Solona process everything the bard had said. They continued walking, emerging from the woods some distance from the inn. Solona let go of her hand, leaving her to stand alone, and walked to the water's edge, looking out over the water at the moon. It was peeking out from behind the storm clouds that she saw gathering earlier that day, its light spilling out on the land, appearing almost bright compared to the gloom of the woods.

Suddenly, the mage took a few steps, stooping by a log on the shore and standing with something in her hand. She came to stand before Leliana, who had started to worry about rejection, and presented a handful of tiny white flowers, each center a startling shade of pink.

Leliana cocked her head to the side, a little confused. "Flowers? Thank you? They're very… pretty." She accepted them, still incredibly confused. They were having a serious discussion about her assumptions about magic. Why would she walk away from her, then turn around and give her flowers?

Solona knit her brows. "These… were the flowers your mother used, aren't they?"

"These…" She brought them to her face, her mother's scent exploding around her. For a moment, she saw her mother's face, heard her sweet voice humming as she tucked a very small Leliana into bed. She smiled, almost able to feel the soft warmth of her mother's lips against her cheek, her forehead, the tip of her nose. She was always speaking softly in Ferelden to her daughter, telling her to sleep well, and that they would have an adventure together in the morning.

"Andraste's Grace," she sighed, opening her eyes and looking up to the tall, dark woman in front of her. Solona's pure white hair shone brilliantly in the moonlight, her face almost obscured in contrast. Even still, she could detect the smile on the mage's lips, crinkling her eyes and relaxing her brows, which had been knit together for most of their walk.

"So you like them?"

Leliana threw her arms around the mage in response, hugging her fiercely. "They are lovely! Thank you." She felt the mage's arms wrap around her waist, lifting her and spinning her slowly before setting her back on her feet.

"You're welcome, Leliana." She looked up to see Solona smiling. "Thank you for telling me all of that. I can't imagine how painful it is to remember all of that out loud."

Leliana smiled. "It's only fair – you have told me all about your own troubles. I just… wanted you to understand. I am getting there, and I wish to learn more, about you, and about the  _incredible_  gift that you wield. But it will take me some time. If you can be patient with me, I am sure I can work through it all."

Solona placed a hand on her cheek. "I already told you that you've captured my heart, Leliana." She bent her head and kissed her hair. "I don't think I quite ever understood until now what it might be like to learn about magic as someone who can't use it. It must seem so strange to you, the things I can do."

Leliana ducked her head. "I admit, it is a little terrifying, to know that the people around me can manipulate the world through just the power of their will. I can see the temptation to try to control it – we do that, as Men, with things we do not understand."

"I never really thought about it. It's just how I am, the natural way for me to be." She felt Solona's finger hook under her chin, a gentle pressure facing them once more. "So perhaps we both have a bit of understanding to gain of the other."

Leliana smiled, watching as Solona's expression mirrored hers. "I'm willing to put in the time and effort if you are."

Solona almost purred her answer. "Oh, Leliana, with you I am willing to take all the time in the world."


	11. The Road To Redcliffe

Solona stalked Alistair around the room, circling and matching him step for step. He held a practice sword only, a matching one in the mage's hand. With a cry, Solona attacked. Alistair beat it back easily enough, catching her "blade" with his own, grabbing her wrist with his free hand and sending her stumbling backward with a hard shove.

Irving and Wynne had decided that the way to get her to harness the energy she'd found before was to simulate its conditions. Obviously, sparring with wooden weapons and no threat of death was not a true simulation, but it was the best they could do, and there was simply no more reading to be done. So for two days they had spent the  _entirety_  of the morning and afternoon sparring in a dormitory that had been cleared of wreckage. The stone was no fun to fall upon, but it was all they could do on short notice, as it had been raining off and on the entire time.

Solona attacked again, and again Alistair repulsed her. He had no idea how she was still going. She had to be exhausted.  _He_  was tired, and he had more strength and stamina than she did.

He suddenly found himself flung to the ground. He felt his skin crawl with energies, and then Solona was astride his chest, the wooden practice sword held at his throat, a feral grin on her face.

"Give up?"

"Yes, yes!" He narrowed his eyes at her, then broke into a wide grin. "You did it, Solona!"

She blinked. "I… I did?" She seemed to think for a moment, letting the sword drift away from him. He thought about turning the tables, pinning her to the ground, but figured he'd give her this one. The point of the sparring, after all, had been for her to cast a spell without trying.

She focused back on him. "I did!"

"It's great! Now, get off me. No offense, but all your weight on my chest makes it a little hard to breathe."

She smirked, a look of mischief coming over her face before she got up. When he made to get up from the ground, she placed a single booted foot on his shoulder and shoved him back down with a grin.

"Dammit, Solona! You are so going to pay for that!"

"Okay. But later. I have to go get Irving and Wynne! And Leliana!" And she was gone, leaving him to get his bruised body up off the floor on his own.

Not five minutes later, they all came back into the room with Solona. They'd grown bored watching the two of them spar, listening to their banter as they did so, and had gone to take a break with their books. Leliana had lasted slightly longer, but she, too, had grown bored, going off to help the dog entertain the children. The last he'd heard, she was telling them the story of Aveline, Knight of Orlais.

"Solona says she had a breakthrough?" Irving was almost spry as he bounced into the room. He seemed to be recovering very well from his time as Uldred's captive.

"Yes, she knocked me right on my a- uh, right to the ground, without uttering a word." He didn't usually keep from swearing, but something about Wynne's presence brought out his inner gentleman, and he found himself censoring himself whenever she was around.

"Well? What happened?!" Wynne rounded on the other warden, exasperated. "What did you do?"

"Honestly?" Solona shrugged. "I got frustrated with him. I pictured him on his ass, felt the energy like it was behind a curtain or something, and sent it at him. Electricity shot from my fingertips." She scratched her head. "Come to think of it, I'm glad it was only mild frustration. When I knocked Zevran out, I was  _pissed_ , and I almost killed him."

Alistair smirked. "Thank the Maker I didn't get you actually  _angry_ , then. Let's not have you fight Sten anymore, shall we?" She had a tendency to become completely exasperated with the qunari.

"Actually," Leliana said, pacing around the two of them, her face alight with interest. "If an emotional reaction is what we need, then perhaps  _you_  are the only one she  _shouldn't_  be sparring with, Alistair. You are too nice."

"And you aren't?" he asked, brows furrowed.

"Oh, I can be mean when I want to be." Her voice got low and husky, and Alistair watched as she eyed the other warden, suddenly aware that there was something odd present in that look. But he was unable to place it before Wynne spoke up.

"Perhaps she is right. I will think on it. Solona, speak with me a little before you go back to the inn

Solona nodded, heading off with Wynne and Irving, leaving Alistair alone with Leliana.

"What was it like," the bard asked, picking up the practice weapons they had both dropped before walking over to him.

"It was… different from last time. It just kind of happened. She was herself the whole time, even when she had me pinned to the floor. No glowing eyes or anything." He took the weapons from her, smiling. "Shall we head for the tavern?"

"Oh, yes, alright. You don't think Solona will mind?"

"I think she'll be questioned until the sun sets, and  _then_  she'll come back with Max."

"That is probably true. Yes, okay,  _allons-y_."

"Um, that means…?"

Leliana giggled at him. "Let's go."

Alistair felt himself blush, cursing his light skin for making it obvious whenever he did that. "Oh. Right. Well. Lead on."

* * *

"Warden?"

"Please, Wynne, Alistair is fine."

Wynne graced him with one of her warm smiles. "Alistair, then. I had something to ask of you and your fellow warden."

"Ask away." Alistair continued packing the cart. A week and some days after they'd freed the Circle, the inn was starting to see trade again, and they had acquired a great many necessities, and even some luxuries: individual tents for everyone but Solona and Leliana, who had chosen to simply keep sharing their larger tent; restocked stores of food; even some suitable armor and boots for Sten. The donkey would be pulling a heavier load, but nothing more than it could handle. Merchants usually carried twice this much with a single donkey, so Alistair wasn't worried.

"I was hoping to join you on your quest."

Alistair stopped what he was doing, turning to regard the elder mage. She wasn't really  _that_  old, he supposed, and she'd held her own in the Tower marvelously. She’d also been at Ostagar, and _survived_ where plenty of her fellow mages and templars had not. And she seemed to be the only person, aside from maybe Leliana, who didn't hate him the first moment she saw him. Well, Zevran didn’t hate him, either, but he didn't know what to make of all the elf's flirting. He and Solona were on much friendlier terms now, but when they first met, she was almost  _worse_  than Morrigan. He considered Wynne for another moment. Her experience in life would certainly add a measure of balance to his and Solona's vast  _in_ experience.

_And yet somehow we’re in charge of this thing? It will be a miracle if it doesn’t end in smoke. And soon._

Alistair shrugged. "Having you around would actually be incredibly useful, with us still not knowing the half of what Solona's capable of."

The woman nodded sagely. "That is part of it. But I feel it is my duty to help against the Blight. And given the amount of fire you all are likely to come under, perhaps having a mage adept at healing would not be the worst thing in the world." She gave him a pointed look.

Alistair chuckled. "That's the truth. I should probably ask Solona first, but I don't see why you can't. Will the Circle let you travel without a templar contingency?" He remembered that mages did venture outside of the Circle from time to time, but it was generally under templar scrutiny – including those at Ostagar.

"A Grey Warden may travel with who they like. If you especially, as a templar initiate, came to speak to Gregoir and Irving with me, there should be no problem whatsoever."

"The only thing is… not to offend, but we do spend a lot of time walking. It's not the most punishing pace, but it wears day after day…"

Wynne smiled again, like she was indulging a child. "No offense taken. I am spryer than I look, young man. I would not ask to come along if I was not sure I could keep up."

Alistair gave her a nod. "Alright, well, let me go find Solona, and then we'll go across the lake to get your things."

He found his fellow warden poring over a book with Morrigan. He wasn't sure how he felt about the mellowing of their relationship. On the one hand, they  _should_  get along; they were both mages, both with a supreme distaste of the Circle. And yet, on the other hand, while the two had been at odds, Alistair had felt marginally safe in the assumption that, if it came down to it, and Morrigan tried to fry his skin from his bones, Solona might at least warn him before standing off to one side and watching. At least Solona was becoming friends with the both Morrigan and himself. It would make choosing sides more difficult, he figured.

Solona was amenable to the idea of Wynne joining them, but Morrigan was not. She loathed being around such a preachy, self-righteous example of the Circle's products, as she put it. But, in the end, it was Morrigan who was travelling with the wardens, and not the other way around, and so, while her opinion was always considered – Alisatir would never admit it, but her opinions weren't  _always_  awful – it was the wardens, and  _not_  Morrigan, who chose their companions. And she even begrudgingly agreed that having the elder mage around if Solona were to lapse into her arcane warrior  _thing_  would be incredibly helpful in figuring out how she'd done it.

So, two hours after she asked him, he and Wynne disembarked the ferry, manned since the freeing of the Tower by the ferryman and  _not_  the impertinent templar from before, making their way up to the giant door of the Tower in a comfortable silence.

Once through the doors to the Tower, he spoke up. "You're sure Gregoir won't cause a fuss?"

Wynne nodded. "Mages are not allowed to travel unaccompanied. The make-up of that accompaniment is not technically specified anywhere, however. And beside that, you trained as a templar. I am sure that he and Irving will have no problems with it. It is my  _duty_  to help you in this quest, in whatever way I am able. If that means keeping you stitched together while you throw yourselves at darkspawn with abandon, then so be it," she said with a wink.

Alistair chuckled. "Well, luckily, we haven't run into any darkspawn on the road just yet. Though I suspect that will change soon enough." He paused outside the Knight-Commander's door, taking a deep breath. "All right, let's go in, then, shall we?"

"No. I will not let yet another mage out of my sights."

Irving sighed. "It is not your choice, Gregoir. You are as familiar with the laws of the Chantry and the Circle as I am. As long as she is a mage in good standing – a Senior Enchanter, no less – and accompanied by others of good faith, she is allowed out of the Circle. These people are of good faith; they cleansed the Tower where you were not able."

Gregoir glared daggers at Irving. Alistair shifted uncomfortably. He was never very good in an outright confrontation like this. He was much better at deflecting it with bad jokes. Which might say just how terrible in an argument he really was.

"Gentlemen, please." Wynne stepped between them, looking up at the Knight-Commander with a forced, tight smile. "Arguing will not solve anything. I asked permission as a courtesy, Gregoir. I could have simply informed you. None of Alistair's companions are enemies of the Circle. They fight to stop a Blight on this land. They are  _not_  the enemy here."

"Except the other warden," he responded acidly.

Wynne sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "That you see her as an enemy here is the problem. Can you fault her for wanting to be away from you? We take children from their homes and don't let them leave, eventually forcing them into an encounter with a demon. Would  _you_ accept that as your fate for the rest of your life?"

"The Order dictates-"

Alistair cut him off, irritation flaring inside of him. "The  _Chantry_  dictates that mages must live within the safety of the Circle, and the Order carries out their law. Unless there is a dire need. I dream of the archdemon, Knight-Commander; there is  _great_  need." He paused, trying his best not to smile at his ability to pull rank over the Knight-Commander. "The treaties compel the Circle and the Templar Order to help the Grey Wardens. I _require_  Wynne's presence as a liaison with the Circle, to travel with us as we seek the aid of the others who have also signed these treaties."

Gregoir's gaze could only be described as murder. He glared for several moments, before spitting "Fine" and turning to sit at his desk, completely ignoring them. Alistair smiled to himself, making sure to get out of that office as quickly as possible.

"Come along, Alistair." Wynne sounded vaguely amused. "You can be smug while I gather the things I plan to take with me." He chuckled as he moved down the hallway with her, listening as she and Irving discussed what she needed.

* * *

"So it'll take about a week to get to Redcliffe?"

"Yes,” Alistair replied. “We could push harder and get there more quickly, but I don't see a reason why we should make up a day or two by tiring ourselves out. We'll need our energy for the next crisis.  Whatever it might be."

Solona nodded. "We do have quite a bit to do once we're done with the arl."

"Exactly. So why exhaust ourselves early on? And, well…" Alistair trailed off, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. "There's something you should know before we get there."

Solona gave him a sidelong glance. "… What?"

 _Dammit, why couldn't this wait until we knew each other a little better?_  "I should probably have told you earlier…"

"Alistair," Solona heaved a sigh. "Stop stalling."

"Right, right, well. Where to start?" He mindlessly adjusted his armor plating. They'd decided, after Zevran's ambush, that wearing their armor, even in the heat of the sun, was probably the safest thing to do, as the whole point of an ambush was that it was a surprise. Even Solona had submitted, wearing the leather armor Leliana had procured for her at the Tower. His helm, however, stayed stowed within easy reach in the cart, behind him with Zevran. There was no way he would be wearing  _that_  if he didn't need to.

She smirked. "Well, I already know you're an idiot, so if  _that's_  the confession…"

"Right, I brought it up in such a dramatic fashion to tell you I'm an idiot. The secret's out." He rolled his eyes, slightly annoyed that she deflected things with humor just as much as he did, but also glad she wasn't angry. Yet. "Look, I told you before how Arl Eamon raised me, right? That my mother was a serving girl at the castle and he took me in when she died in childbirth?"

"You mentioned it in passing. When Ser Jory mentioned he was from Redcliffe, I believe."

 _Here goes nothing…_  "Okay. So. The reason he did that was because… well, because my father was King Maric. Which made Cailan my… half-brother, I suppose."

Solona stopped for a moment, looking at him in shock. He didn't notice at first, walking several paces before realizing she was no longer with him. When he turned to find where she'd gone, she was already walking again. She smirked as he fell in beside her, the shock gone from her expression as abruptly as it had appeared.

"So… you're not just a bastard, but a _royal_ bastard?"

"Oh! Funny! Look, Solona can make a joke!" He mock-glared before letting out a chuckle at her entirely self-satisfied grin.

Her expression became serious after a while. "So, doesn't that make you heir to the throne?"

"Maker's breath, I hope not!" He paused, considering. "I don't think so… you don't think so, do you? I'm a bastard, and nobody even knows about me." He sighed. "I  _would_  have told you, but… it never really meant anything to me. I was… inconvenient, a threat to Cailan's rule and so they kept me secret. I've never talked to anyone about it before, come to think of it. Anyone who knew either resented me for it or they coddled me… even Duncan kept me out of the fighting because of it. I didn't want you to know – I didn't want anyone to know – for as long as possible." He sighed again, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I'm sorry."

Solona was quiet for a time. It was a monumental show of self-control for Alistair to not babble to fill the silence. Finally, she spoke. "Does Loghain know?"

Alistair snorted disdainfully. "Why wouldn't he? He was Maric's best friend. I don't know if that means anything, though… I certainly never considered the idea that it might ever be important." He shrugged, shooting her a half-smile. "At any rate, that's what I had to tell you. I thought it was time for you to know about it."

Solona nodded, and they lapsed into silence for a while. He thought that was it, they were done, when Solona asked him another question. "So, why tell me, then? If it was never important to you? If you aren't after the throne?"

Alistair sighed once more. "Because it will probably come up, and I didn't want you walking into Redcliffe not knowing the truth. That would be… more than awkward, for you to find out when they say something." He risked a glance at his fellow warden, watching her nod thoughtfully. She seemed to be taking it all in stride, but he still felt compelled to clarify something. "I have no illusions about my status, however. It's always been made very clear to me that I'm a commoner, and now a Grey Warden, and in no way in line for the throne. And that's fine by me. No, if there's an heir to be found, it's Arl Eamon himself. He's not of royal blood, but he  _is_  Cailan's uncle… and more importantly, very popular with the people."

He paused, taking a deep breath. "So, there you have it. Can we just move on? I can pretend you think I'm just some nobody who was too lucky to die with the rest of the wardens." An image came unbidden to his mind of Duncan, the last warm face he saw before the wardens' demise, and he had to fight the prickling sensation behind his eyes.

A sly smile crossed her face, instantly making Alistair suspicious. "Very well… my prince."

"I… Hey!" Solona laughed, and Alistair reached out to cuff her on the arm. Only, she danced out of the way, and without giving it a lot of thought, he was giving chase, startling Leliana and Wynne out of a rather involved conversation as Solona ducked between the two of them.

Solona grabbed Leliana at each shoulder, a huge grin on her face, using the bard to block Alistair's attempts to get at her.

Leliana cursed in Orlesian, finishing with, "What in the Maker's holy name are you two  _doing_?" He imagined her expression was quite stern as she looked up into Solona's face. But Solona was not looking down at her human shield; she was too busy grinning and laughing at Alistair over the bard's shoulder.

"Alistair confessed that he's King Maric's son, and I'm showing him that I don't think any less of him for it! It's not my fault he doesn't appreciate it!" Solona ducked behind Leliana's shoulder, turning the bard to stay in front of her as Alistair tried to move around her. "Why, what does it look like we're doing?"

Wynne's voice sounded amused as she answered. "It looks like you two are acting like children."

"I think we are all overlooking the important thing here," Solona countered, giving up her hold on Leliana and taking a step backward. "Alistair asked me to start calling him 'His Royal Highness!' "

"That's it, you are gonna get it  _so_  hard, Solona," Alistair yelled, lunging around Leliana for the mage as she skipped back with a laugh, turning and running off with more speed than he could possibly hope to maintain, decked out in heavy plate armor as he was. He finally gave up, falling back to walk with Wynne and Leliana, both wearing expressions that conveyed their amusement and exasperation.

"So… King Maric's son?" Leliana raised an eyebrow.

Alistair sighed resignedly before launching into the whole story again.

* * *

Alistair awoke to something gently nudging him. When he opened his eyes, the dog was looming over him, chuffing softly.

"All right, all right, I'm up. I guess Solona didn't want to come into my tent?"

The dog chuffed again in affirmation, turning and leaving, giving him his privacy. He stretched, yawning. He hated the middle night shift, as most did. It was difficult to break up your sleep like that. At least he had a good conversationalist with him tonight, though – Leliana had drawn the watch with him.

He had been upset at first, when she turned him down before he ever even made a move. But it didn't take him long to be grateful to her for nipping that in the bud. She wasn't interested, didn't want to lead him on, and he was able to move on before his feelings could get away from him. Now, he could just enjoy her as a friend. Perhaps this was better – he knew how to be a friend. He would be completely out of his element as a lover.

Stepping out of his tent – these tents were a huge improvement over sleeping under the stars, in his opinion – he found Max sitting with his head cocked to the side while staring at the girls' tent. He heard a few giggles emanating from it, but didn't think much of it, moving toward the woods to relieve himself before grabbing his weapons.

When he came back to the camp, Leliana had still not yet emerged from her tent, and Max was still staring at it, whining softly.

"They kick you out, boy?" The dog looked up at him, leaning into his hip as he came to stand next to the dog, patting his head and scratching behind his ear. "Girls  _do_  need their privacy, boy." He was about to move away to grab his weapons and shield, when he heard something peculiar.

Leliana's lilting accent whispered, "How am I supposed to get up and out of this tent when you wake me up like  _that_?"

A lower-pitched voice responded with a chuckle, saying, "I don't know. But you're on watch. Go."

What was that all about? How did Solona wake Leliana up? What was with all the giggling? And the humming and… was that moaning? They weren't being loud, but it was easy to hear when the only other sound was the crackling of the fire. Were they… kissing? Is that what Leliana meant when she said she wasn't after a man? He'd heard things about that kind of thing, of course, but he was suddenly very aware of how sheltered his upbringing in the Chantry was.

A few more seconds of giggling, and then Leliana finally emerged.

Catching Alistair staring.

 _Balls_.

She froze just outside the tent, a guilty look on her face that Alistair was sure matched the one on his face. He recovered quickly, though, waving a silent greeting, smiling nervously, and moving to get his weapons from just inside his tent. He couldn't help thinking, as he moved to join her on the far side of the fire, away from all the tents, that this was going to be an awkward watch.

"Sleep well?" he asked, hoping to break the last few minutes of quiet.

"Yes, very well, thank you," she replied, before lapsing into silence again.

 _Dammit. This is what I get for being nosy_.

"So… Is-"

She cut him off, which was good, because he wasn't even sure what he was going to ask. "If you are the illegitimate brother of the king, does that not still make you a better choice for the throne than the Teyrn? You have royal blood. He does not."

 _The one time I'd rather talk about this than what I'm thinking about_. "I hope not. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't want to see Loghain on the throne, either. But Eamon is the best candidate. He's a good man, he knows how to rule, and his claim isn't tainted in any way by the circumstances of his birth. No," he shook his head for emphasis, "he's the far better candidate than I am."

"Perhaps… but you may not have a say in the matter, Alistair. Sometimes duty trumps all, yes?"

He sighed, drawing a dagger so he could draw aimlessly in the dirt next to him. The rain had softened it, but the last few days of sunshine had dried the mud, leaving it the ideal consistency for gardening, were he so inclined.

_Of all the random thoughts to have…_

"Trust me," he countered, "this country does not want a bastard on the throne. Eamon is capable, and he is the far better candidate."

"I'll drop it if you like. I'm sorry it keeps coming up. I imagine that this is part of why you kept it to yourself for so long." She shifted, crossing her legs and leaning against the log behind them.

After a while he started feeling drowsy. "I'm going to do a circuit of camp, wake myself up a little. I'll see you in a bit, yeah?"

"Alright. I will see you in a little while," she said with a smile. He was struck once more by how beautiful she was, possibly more so with her hair slightly disheveled from sleep.

He smiled back and moved off toward the treeline.

* * *

"Solona, you did it again. Stop shocking me!"

"But it's fun! And it's so easy! And it's the one thing I can do without having to get really annoyed first!  _And_  you can't anticipate it!"

She  _had_  managed to duplicate her feat in the Tower every night during her sparring. Every single member of their party had been zapped repeatedly, Solona delighting in being able to access that power in even a small way, incorporating it into her fighting immediately.

Unfortunately, it meant that they all received many small jolts of electricity, and it got old _very_ quickly.

Alistair frowned. "Well, it's getting  _me_  annoyed! So stop it!"

She just grinned in response, holding out her practice sword in an invitation for him to attack her.

"You know," called Zevran, "you two should start to talk strategy. I imagine we'll eventually run into bandits or darkspawn or something equally as unappealing, and from what I saw when we met, you fight with no organization whatsoever."

Solona's sword came up and blocked Alistair's, a zap of electricity jumping from her free hand to his chest, utterly distracted his attention. He was knocked back to the ground a moment later, his head still buzzing from the shock.

"Sorry! I was trying to do something else!"

He growled in frustration. "Well, I'm done being your test subject! Go fight Zevran or something." He got up with a grunt and stalked toward his tent, intent on washing away the sweat and grime of the day in the river they had camped near.

"I really am sorry, Alistair," came Solona's voice, touched with a hint of reproach.

He sighed as he looked back to her. "I know. I'm just tired. I'll see you on watch later, yeah?"

She nodded. "Yeah, okay." And she turned to speak with Zevran.

He'd gotten used to bathing in the woods months before, but still looked forward to a hot bath once they were at Castle Redcliffe. Getting clean for its own sake felt wonderful, though, and he took a few more moments than were strictly necessary to swim around in the clear water.

He walked back to camp in just his towel, his clothes over his arm so he could hang them out to dry. He tried to wash them at least every few days, hanging them outside with his armor to dry overnight. He only had one other set of travel clothes, and washing them everyday just wasn't feasible.  _Bathing_  everyday wasn't even always something they could manage. Hopefully he'd be able to get some extra clothing in Redcliffe, in addition to augmenting their food stores – hard cheese and wild game got old after a while. And it wasn’t always easy on the stomach.

He was about to pop into his tent when he heard Morrigan's voice rise in frustration.

"Solona! Look at what your  _fool_  dog placed in my pack!"

He stood up and saw Solona looking over from her place by Zevran. When he panned around, he saw that the only person not looking to Morrigan was Sten, who had made it abundantly clear that he could not possibly care less about the majority of the conversations in camp.

"Looks like a hare, Morrigan." If he wasn't mistaken, his fellow warden had a half-smile on her face.

"A  _putrid, half-eaten_  hare is not something a woman wants to find in her unmentionables!" Morrigan stalked closer and closer to Solona, hare in-hand, eyes on the dog lying on his back at Solona's feet.

"Aw, it's the thought that counts," Solona replied, now fully grinning. "He just wants to make sure you have enough to eat! He means well."

Morrigan came to stand before them. Alistair could only imagine what the look on her face was. "The dirty mongrel can have this back." She tossed it in front of the dog. "Tell him to not do it again!"

Solona smiled amusedly at Morrigan, then looked down to the dog. "Don't do it again, boy. She's not going to let you in her tent, no matter what you give her. Besides, you're a war dog, not a nursemaid."

The dog just whined up at Morrigan.

"I don't want it! You worthless fur-bag!"

He just whined again, looking to Solona for support.

"He's too smart for his own good," Solona chuckled with a shake of her head, looking down at Max with a fond smile.

"He is  _certainly_  manipulative, I can tell." She turned to walk back to her tent, then stopped and turned back to address her fellow mage once more. "I do it, too."

Alistair barked out a laugh, along with Leliana, who sat at the fire, stirring their dinner in the pot he had filled with water for her earlier.

"You seem to be in a better mood," Leliana remarked as he joined her by the fire a few minutes later, now dressed.

"What can I say?" He sat on the log next to her. "Seeing Morrigan so ruffled just warms my heart right up. Almost lets me forget that Solona keeps throwing miniature lightning at us."

"Yes, it is growing old, isn't it? Still, it is progress, and she gains more control each time." Leliana placed the lid on the pot, holding the spoon out for Alistair to taste, which he did, gladly. "Still not a breakthrough like it was the first time, though."

"Well, the first time took her body being consumed in flame in order to make it happen. I know  _I'm_  capable of far more strength and speed than normal when I think a sword is about to skewer me. Perhaps this is a magical manifestation of that kind of stamina?"

"Like a magical adrenaline rush?" Leliana looked from Alistair to Solona, off away from the fire, still speaking with Zevran. "I had not even thought of it."

"It is a thought," Wynne chimed in from her place trying to read by the fire, some yards away. "Though if that were the case then she should be able to tap into it whenever she is simply tired but till fighting." Wynne was looking in their direction, but it was clear she was not focusing on either of them. "I imagine battle will come soon enough, and we will just have to stay flexible, and see what happens next. That she can experiment with it at all is indeed an improvement, however." She closed her book and finally focused on Alistair with a thoughtful smile. "Perhaps the next time it happens, she will have a greater degree of control."

* * *

"You are too eager. You must exercise patience."

"Right. Patience."

Alistair ran forward once more, only to be repulsed by an immovable Sten.

"Are you not listening?"

Alistair rubbed the back of his neck before getting up off the ground. "Honestly? I'm not really sure what you mean. When you and Leliana fight, it seems to be as quick as lightning. In fact, that seems to be her strategy – knock you down before you can react."

"This is true," the grey-skinned mountain replied. "However, you are not her. Your strategy must be different."

"What do you mean, I'm not her? I mean, I know I'm not, but I know you mean more than that."

"You are not able to be as quick as she. But you have more power, even as you have less speed. You need to use them in combination, or you will never be able to take down a larger opponent."

"But… how?"

"You will not be able to move in a way I cannot anticipate, the way the orange-haired female does. You must find other weaknesses and exploit them with your strength and your size. The weakness she found is that I am slower than she. That is a weakness  _you_  cannot exploit, as I am not discernibly slower than _you_."

Alistair frowned, but nodded. "I understand what you mean, but how am I to find these weaknesses?"

"By trying different approaches when we spar," the qunari rumbled in response.

"… I thought I was."

"You were not." Sten was not the most helpful of companions, answering every question with the minimum number of words required.

"Right. Well. I guess we can only keep trying?"

Sten grunted his agreement, then surprised Alistair by taking offense for once. Alistair jumped back in surprise, falling on his rump. He quickly rolled away as the qunari's mass closed on him, threatening to squash him under giant boots. When he came to a stop, Sten's ankle was right in front of his face, and before he had a chance to think about it, he bowed his body on the ground and kicked upward, connecting with the side of Sten's knee. He heard a sickening  _pop_ , Sten staggering to the side of his uninjured leg.

Alistair smiled in satisfaction, having finally brought the big warrior down, when he was suddenly lifted and thrown, landing so heavily that the wind was knocked from him. His vision swam for several moments, and when it cleared he could see Wynne healing Sten's ruined knee.

A chuckle brought his attention back to his own position, and he found three laughing faces floating above him – Solona, Leliana, and Zevran.

Leliana sing-songed her lesson for the day: "You should really have an escape plan if you're going to irritate something so much bigger than you, Alistair."

He groaned and rolled over, burying his face in the grass to be rid of her smugly superior smile. And giggle. _Must women always giggle?_

He groaned once more, because usually he liked it when women giggled.

_Maybe I really **should**  just start sleeping in the grass. It's quite comfy, and I seem to end up lying in it every night anyway… Plus, then I won't have to see the others' faces anymore._

Eventually, he made it to his tent, promptly falling asleep until someone awoke him for his watch.

* * *

"I have a proposition, if you'll hear it, Wynne."

"Yes, Solona?"

They all sat around the fire, eating the exquisite stew Wynne had put together. It had rabbit, and various roots harvested throughout the day, and even some herbs she'd brought along from the Tower. And to top it all off? Strawberries on the side. Wild strawberries, found by the greedy dog, who Alistair had found guzzling them right off the vines before the warrior scolded him. Even Morrigan had helped harvest them, with only a minimum of fuss.

They  _had_  traded insults back and forth, though.

"Seeing as Alistair and Sten frequently try to poison us with their cooking, I venture that you take their shifts at the cookpot, and they take  _your_ shifts cleaning."

"Hey!" Alistair didn't actually mind. Wynne's cooking was much better than both of theirs, it was true; he tended to boil things until they were a uniform grey (Fine Ferelden Dining, he'd told Leliana), and he was pretty sure that Sten would eat his meat raw if left to his own devices. He'd asked the warrior about it, actually. He'd gotten the answer that "Sten do not prepare meals," whatever that meant.

"Certainly you cannot be offended when she speaks the truth? Dimwitted toad…" Morrigan's insults had become lackluster, of late. He decided to bait her, just to liven things up.

"Why do you always go on about how stupid I am?" He turned on Solona with a wink – a wink that Morrigan conveniently couldn't see. "I'm not stupid, am I?"

Solona stifled a laugh as Morrigan answered him with a roll of her eyes. "If you need to ask the question…"

He winked again, then turned back to the witch. "Because it hurts my manly feelings you know. All _one_ of them." He dropped his voice low, dousing it in sarcasm.

Morrigan's eyes found his, and if he wasn't mistaken, he saw the corners of her mouth flick up momentarily in what  _could_  have been a smile. "Then I'll be sure to write you an apology once all of this is over."

He perked up, enjoying the sarcastic banter for once. Say what you will about her – she was incredibly fun to see with her hackles up. He just couldn’t get them too far up or he’d end up doused in boiling water. "I was educated by the Chantry. I studied history. They don't make stupid templars."

Morrigan's eyes narrowed, but he could still swear she was slightly amused. But perhaps that was just wishful thinking? "Then I must have been mistaken. I'm  _very_  impressed." Her voice was all singsong-sarcasm.

He looked away, sighing theatrically. "No you're not. You don't even listen to me."

"My. You  _are_  smarter than you look after all. Your Chantry must have been very proud."

That did it; Solona snickered, followed by Leliana and Zevran. Wynne smiled to herself as she served some stew for Sten, who was a late arrival to dinner. After a few good laughs, a silence settled on the group. Alistair found himself thinking about his Chantry education, and how one-sided it was regarding magic, especially once his templar training was underway.

_Speaking of stupid…_

"Hey! I've thought of something I know that you don't!"

This drew Morrigan's attention once more. "Are you talking to me?"

"That's right. You think you're so smart? I've got an academic question that I bet you won't be able to answer."

"Oh, I doubt that," Morrigan replied with an eye roll, falling right into Alistair's trap.

He suppressed a grin. "So tell me, then, what was the name of Andraste's husband?"

Morrigan stared at him appraisingly. "This is a religious question, not an academic one."

His grin burst forth. "You're joking, right? A five-year-old could answer that question. Do you not know more than a child?"

Morrigan stood, all amusement gone from her features. "I care nothing for your religion, and this game of yours is over." She began to stalk off. Clearly, she couldn't take a joke to save her life.

"Oh ho ho!" he called at her retreating form. "How the mighty have crumbled!"

"You did that just to drive her away, Alistair," Leliana scolded, but when he turned to her, she was smiling and her eyes were dancing in amusement.

He shrugged. "Serves her right for being such a shrew all the time. It's not my fault she can't take a joke."

"She does seem to delight in abusing  _you_  specifically," Wynne noted, watching as Sten walked away from the fire to eat his meal away from the rest of them.

"Hey, before she and Solona started making friends, she was just as mean to _her_."

"Leave me out of this, Alistair. We were rebuking  _you_ ," Solona said, eyes narrowed, but a smile on her lips.

She sat on the ground next to Leliana. The two had grown… very close. And given what he'd overheard from their tent the other night, they were probably closer than just friends. He wasn't sure how he felt about it, really. He still liked Leliana, thought she was beautiful, and funny, and enjoyed her company – especially when she was physically close to him. But if she didn't want anything more than friendship from him, he wasn't going to push it.

It was just… odd, to think of the two of them together. A relationship like that wasn't completely unheard of. Hell, he'd grown up sheltered in the Chantry and  _he_  was at least loosely familiar with the concept, if a bit fuzzy on the details of how it worked – not that he was familiar with all the details of how sex would work for  _him_. He just never thought he'd be…  _seeing_  it happen.  _Well, not **seeing**  it exactly. Though I suppose I wouldn't mind - no, stop that._

He smiled in response to Solona and put his hands up in surrender. "Fine, fine. You're right. I'm sorry I provoked her."

" _You're_  the one who has watch with her tonight, Alistair, not us," Leliana pointed out.

He groaned.  _I forgot about that_. Leliana giggled, Solona snorted, and Max chuffed at Wynne for another scrap of food.

"There's no more, boy," she answered him, and he whined before skulking off to find something else to eat.

"I'll take that," Alistair offered, getting up and starting to gather everyone's dishes inside the pot. Manual labor seemed to be his strong suit, but he didn't really mind. He'd sooner eat Wynne's cooking than his own any day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear someday Alistair will catch a break! Probably...


	12. Redcliffe

"It's odd, how quiet the castle looks from here. You would think there was nobody inside at all." Teagan turned around to face the party, focusing on the two wardens. "But I shouldn't delay things further. I had a plan… to enter the castle after the village was secure."

Solona heard Morrigan groan, and she couldn't help but agree with the sentiment.  _He makes it sound like all we had to do was batten down the hatches._  Solona tried not to smirk at the thought. Truth be told, it had been terrible, securing the village. She had watched Alistair's face fall with each passing moment when they first arrived. She imagined it wasn't unlike when she had set eyes on the destruction at the Tower – except he'd never wanted to leave in the first place, so there was not even a tiny amount of perverse pleasure at the sight for him as there had been for herself.

They had survived the night, with more than a few injuries. Zevran was hurt worst of all, with Wynne so exhausted from healing the militia through the night that she could only perform enough healing on him to ensure he wouldn't bleed to death before she collapsed on a cot provided for her and fallen straight to sleep. From his cot, Zevran had promised to keep an eye on the older mage for them.

The elder mage and the elf seemed to get along well enough, even with his persistent discussion of her bosom, and Solona was glad that he had volunteered to keep an eye on her, and make sure she did not overexert herself once she awoke. Solona had experienced that kind of exhaustion before – when she had almost killed the elf. It had put her down for the rest of the day, and she was quite young. She feared Wynne would push herself too far if left unattended. Her need to ease suffering was that strong.

"There is a secret passage here," the Bann continued, "in the mill, accessible only to my family."

Solona raised one white brow. "Why didn't you mention this before?" They could have snuck someone in to do reconnaissance, if nothing else.

His expression hardened. "I knew you would choose to enter the castle instead of staying in the village… and we needed warriors. I'm sorry if-"

"You would risk our lives to save these  _sheep_?" Morrigan asked incredulously from behind the wardens. "We fight the  _Blight_ , fool. You-"

"That's enough, Morrigan," Alistair snarled through his teeth, shooting her a nasty glare. "We wouldn't have done that, Teagan," he continued. "We might have-"

"Maker's Breath!" Teagan cut him off, gesturing behind them with a look of shock to match his exclamation.

They all turned to see a woman dressed like a noble running toward them, a soldier at her heels. "Teagan!" she exclaimed, coming to a halt before him, acting as though he were the only one there. "Thank the Maker you yet live!" Her voice was colored with the melodic accent of Orlais, though Solona immediately decided that Leliana's voice was prettier. Her hair was auburn, though lighter than Leliana's, and pulled into an elegant bun, a few strands of hair left free to frame her face. She was a handsome woman, not young, but not yet old.

She would be stunningly beautiful were her face not marred by such fear.

"Isolde! You're alive!" Teagan crossed the space between them and embraced her tightly. "How did you…? What has happened?!"

"That's Eamon's wife, Isolde," Alistair leaned over and whispered to her. Leliana let out a soft "ah" of understanding, and Solona gave him a single nod. Morrigan clucked her tongue.

The woman answered him. "I do not have much time to explain. I slipped away from the castle as soon as I saw the battle was over, and I must return quickly. And… you must come with me, Teagan. Alone."

"Er, excuse me for interrupting, but I can't help but think that that would be a very  _bad_  idea," Solona stepped in, making her presence known to the woman who seemed intent on ignoring her presence completely.

"What?" The woman was immediately indignant as she turned to face the mage. "Who is this…  _woman_ , Teagan?" Her eyes then slipped to Alistair with a displeased look.

Alistair spoke before Solona could. "You remember me, don't you, Lady Isolde?" He seemed… resigned.

"Alistair. Of all the… why are  _you_  here?"

Teagan got her attention with a hand to her shoulder. "They are Grey Wardens, Isolde. I owe them my life."

She seemed taken aback, glancing back at Alistair and then Solona with confusion in her eyes. "Pardon me, I… I would exchange pleasantries, but… considering the circumstances…"

"Why don't you start with what those circumstances are?" Solona suggested, unfolding her arms from across her chest, hoping to look less intimidating, knowing her height and severe appearance didn't do a lot to make her look friendly. Hopefully, this woman would have some answers for them, locked in the castle as she had been.

And answers she got. Connor was a mage. Isolde had hired an apostate to teach the boy just enough to hide his powers, so he wouldn't be carted off to the Circle. Except the apostate had actually been hired by someone else, sent to her by Loghain to poison the Arl. Why the Arlessa would trust another noble with that information she'd never know. Obviously Loghain had hired this apostate to poison Arl Eamon, as one of his few rivals left in court.

Solona tried desperately not to keep glancing over at Alistair's face, keeping herself from comforting him in any way. Comfort could come later, when Isolde and Teagan were no longer around. To do so now would only make it worse.

In the end, Teagan agreed to go with Isolde, secretly giving Solona his signet ring so they could sneak into the castle through the passage in the windmill. Solona prayed the passageway was tall enough for Sten. She did not wish to leave him unattended in a village full of frightened people, not when his companions there were both incapacitated; they wouldn't be able to do anything to protect him. Plus, he had proven remarkable against the undead the night before, and showed no sign of tiring, once again refusing Wynne's offer of an energy draught before they left to meet with Teagan at the windmill. No, he needed to come with them, even if he was forced to wait at the gate until they opened it for him.

The passageways, as it turned out, were more than large enough for everyone. Morrigan and Alistair both had been quiet since he had snapped at her outside, but Solona wasn't in a position to worry about it at the moment; she was far too busy coaxing a light at the tip of her staff, a tricky spell that had eluded her as often as not. Spells seemed to come to her memory more willingly these days, however, the exact pronunciation no longer difficult to recall, and soon the hall was awash in a soft white light that no torch could ever produce.

She looked down to Max, ever-present at her side. "Go on ahead, boy. Scout, and let us know what's up there."

Max trotted off, surprisingly silently given that he was a giant, burly war dog.

"Come on," she said to the rest of them, looking from one face to the next. "Let's go save the Arl and his family, shall we?"

"Hello?" The voice sounded familiar. "Is there someone out there? Who is it?"

_Jowan? Surely it can't be…_

Solona broke into a run, completely ignoring the undead corpses Morrigan had blasted to smithereens with a fireball just moments before. When she got close enough to see who was on the other side of the bars, she stopped dead and opened her mouth to exclaim – only to be beaten to it.

"By all that's holy… You! I can't believe it!"

She shut her gaping mouth and stared for a moment. "You took the words right out of my mouth," she murmured.

"How… how did you get here?" Jowan was behind heavy iron bars, covered in blood from the explosion of the undead that had been harassing his cell. A severed hand was wedged in the grating, moving inch by agonizing inch until it finally overbalanced and fell to the floor with a sickening  _plop_.

"You know each other?" Alistair, having finally caught up, came to a halt just behind his fellow warden.

"This is Jowan. He is… _was_ my friend," Solona supplied. At this point, she had shared the story of his escape with both Alistair and Leliana, the former while on watch, the latter while lying together after a long session of kissing that had left her trying desperately to distract herself from the burning desire and the seemingly-constant ache between her legs. Talking usually settled that ache, calming the flames, and besides, she wanted to get closer to Leliana. Sharing one’s life was generally a good way to accomplish that. Trust, loyalty – these were what was required if their relationship was to progress further, which she desperately wanted it to. And not just because she longed to feel the other woman pressed against her naked, though that was certainly part of what she wanted with the bard.  She also wanted more, however; she wanted to know this woman as well as she knew herself.

"He is the one you helped escape from the Tower, yes?" Leliana came up on her other side, discreetly offering her hand to the warden. Solona took it unquestioningly, squeezing it while answering the woman's question with a nod of her head.

Suddenly something clicked as she studied the man. "You… you're the mage Isolde spoke of? The apostate she hired to help her son?"

"Yes." He sounded miserable. "I am a traitor, a would-be assassin, and I have been put in this dungeon to rot. Are you here to finish me off?"

"What?!" She let go of Leliana's hand, moving closer to his prison. "I'm not here to kill you, Jowan!"

Alistair caught her shoulder. "Careful, don't get too close…"

She shook her fellow warden off, ignoring his warning as she addressed her former friend. "You were poisoning Eamon?" He nodded, looking dejected. "Why, Jowan? You had your freedom – at the cost of two people who  _loved_  you. Why would you risk it by doing something so awful?"

"What was freedom without my Lilley?" He turned pleading eyes on her, begging her understanding. "I wanted back in the Circle, but I knew I'd be executed for practicing blood magic. The templars pursuing me were killed, and Teyrn Loghain's men took me to him. He told me he would fix things in the Circle, allow me back in without execution. He said Eamon was a traitor, and that he needed to be 'deleted from the equation.' So I did it." His shoulders slumped. "I couldn't figure out  _how_  he was a threat to Ferelden, but Loghain's a hero! I believed him! And for all I know, the Arl is dead already!"

Solona couldn't think for the red haze behind her eyes. This man who had been her rock for so long just threw his freedom away, freedom  _she_ had bought him with the taint in her blood. And for Loghain, no less! Loghain, who betrayed them, killed Duncan and the others of their Order, as well as his liege lord, all because they wanted help from the Orlesian Grey Wardens! It was a double betrayal, like twin blades in her heart.

Morrigan finally spoke up, Solona too busy trying to figure out her conflicting feelings of friendship and betrayal to stop her. "You are an ignorant fool! You deserve your fate if you believe something just because someone said it was so!"

"Wait. There are still questions for him to answer." Solona finished crossing the distance between them, wrapping her hands around the bars of his cell door, unmindful of the spattered blood and tissue. "What about Connor? Isolde said he has magic? And she hired you to teach him so he didn't have to go to the Circle?"

He nodded. "Yes. She blames these monstrosities on me, calls me malifecar, but this… _madness_  only started _after_ I was thrown in the dungeon!"

"Then… how did the dead become animated?" Alistair ventured. He had answered her story about Jowan with sympathy, confirming that she had every right to feel betrayed by the man. Given the way their relationship was shaping out to be, Solona supposed he might be feeling a brotherly outrage. Thinking of how she would feel were their roles reversed – if she were now suddenly faced with someone who had betrayed Alistair – confirmed it. She would want to punch that person so hard they wouldn't soon forget her face.

Jowan answered Alistair's question hesitantly. "Connor was… frightened, I think. His father lay dying, his mother frantic, and then he found out that I had been poisoning the man. He… as far as I know, he made a pact with a powerful being in the Fade.  _It_  is what reanimates the dead. The boy that  _was_  Connor is trapped within, the spirit taking control more and more thoroughly with each passing night."

"How do you know?" Solona reached a hand through the bars, catching his chin in a viselike grip,  _making_  him look at her, his shame be damned. "How do you know all this, Jowan?"

"Lady Isolde came down here with her guards to question me," he said with a half-hearted smile. "She revealed all that had been happening. And then I got a glimpse of it, when the boy came down here to mock me. It was no ten-year-old boy that regarded me through those eyes."

"So he is possessed, then," Sten rumbled, pulling his sword from his back. "And the mage who practices blood magic must be destroyed." The giant stepped forward, ready to thrust his blade through the bars.

"Sten, no!" Solona withdrew her hand and turned, placing both hands on his chest and sending that now-familiar little jolt of electricity through her fingertips. It did the trick, and he halted, glaring down at her. "We can't just kill him! He's a son of a bitch, yes, but he was also merely a pawn in Loghain's game!"

He narrowed his eyes. "We cannot keep him alive simply for your sentiment. We cannot set him free. A swift death is the best option."

"No! I want to  _help_  fix this!" Jowan suddenly had a lot more energy now that someone was threatening to run him through. "And then I will face my crimes. I promise!"

"What is the promise of a blood mage and a coward who poisons the minds of children and the blood of leaders?" Sten addressed the man behind the bar with disapproval and contempt.

"I…" Jowan's eyes went from Sten to Solona. "Please, Solona. I'm your friend. You helped me escape the Circle. I wouldn't betray you! I  _promise_ to do what I can to help, and then face whatever trial and punishment that await me."

Solona just stared incredulously, memories coming unbidden.

_"We did it! I can't believe it! Thank you, Solona! We could never have-"_

_Jowan turns as Gregoir marches into the room, Irving at his heels. Solona's heart attempts to jump out her throat. Lilley gasps, jumping out of Jowan's triumphant embrace._

_"This looks bad," Solona murmurs, her bad jokes not leaving her, even in her time of need. They were like an annoying younger sibling. Not that she'd ever been given the chance to **know**  her younger siblings._

_"An initiate conspiring with a blood mage. I am disappointed, Lilley." Gregoir addresses Irving and Cullen. "She seems shocked, but fully in control of her own mind. Not a thrall of the blood mage, then." He turns to look at Irving. "You were right. The initiate has betrayed us." He turns back to Lilley. "The Chantry will not let this go unpunished."_

_His eyes snap to Solona's face, narrowing. "And **this**  one. Newly a mage and already flouting the rules of the Circle, even marked as she is." It is incredibly dehumanizing to have him talking about her like she isn't there. Her eyes narrow. Now she is livid, her heart hammering against her ribs in anger instead of fear. She clenches her fists, ready to knock that smug look off his moronic face._

_But Irving steps in, cutting her feet out from under her with his displeasure. "I am disappointed in you. You could have told me what you knew of this plan and you didn't."_

_"Solona, don't listen to him," Jowan urges before addressing Gregoir. "You don't care for the mages. You just bow to the Chantry's every whim!"_

_It works; Solona's anger, her righteous indignation, flares up again. "He's right! You don't care for the apprenti-"_

_"Enough!" Gregoir silences her with a shout. "As knight-commander of the templars here assembled, I sentence this blood mage to death! And this initiate has scorned the Chantry and her vows. Take her to Aonar."_

_Lilley pales, backs away. "The mages' prison? No! Please, not **there**!"_

_And then everything Solona thought to be true crumbles. Jowan screams that he won't let them touch her, pulling a dagger from who knew where and slicing his palm. With no words uttered, he calls forth the energy from his blood, and it is swirling around him, around her and Lilley, and Solona is in such shock that she can do nothing but watch in detached fascination. He lifts his arms suddenly and thrusts them forward, the blood energy around him rushing forward to knock Irving and the templars to the ground._

_Then Jowan and Lilley are arguing, Lilley is telling Jowan to go, that he betrayed her, lied to her. He pleads for her to come with him, but as the men in the room recover from their daze, he flees, choosing his own safety and leaving the woman he professes to love behind to face his consequences. Solona's hands clench into fists for entirely different reasons from before._

Solona removed her hands from Sten's chest plate and rounded on Jowan. "You also  _swore_  you were not a blood mage! How can I trust you? You left Lilley to face punishment for  _your_  plan, for  _your_  foray into forbidden magic! You left  _me_  to be conscripted into the Grey Wardens, and now my blood is tainted. You…" Her voice dropped to a whisper, choking out the last. "You bring nothing but poison and death…"

Alistair stepped forward, gently moving Solona aside so that he could address Jowan himself. "She worked so hard to help get you out, to let you be with your love, and you betrayed her." His voice was low, menacing, threatening. Clearly, she was right, that he was feeling a brotherly protectiveness. Also possibly a bit angry that Jowan had tried to kill the only other man Alistair had known as Father aside from Duncan. "Then you do  _this?!_  You are a bastard. You deserve much more than a swift death."

"Do not kill him," Leliana said suddenly. Her blue eyes were going back and forth between the mage warden, Alistair, and the mage behind the bars.

"Leliana…" Alistair looked at her warningly, holding Solona gently by her shoulders still.

"No, do not kill him. We know nothing about the poison he used on the arl, and he will have information about the boy’s magic that no one else will have, as he mentored him. We must decide what to do with him later, but we cannot kill him now."

"That is a foolish… Actually, that makes sense..." Dammit if Morrigan didn't look downright surprised at her own admission. There wasn't even a hint of acid in her tone when she corrected herself.

Solona bit back a laugh. She shrugged off Alistair's support with a nod and a smile of thanks, then looked back to Jowan, her eyes narrowed in anger.

"I will leave you alive for now, Jowan – it is not my place to dole out justice. But you are my friend no longer. You are a selfish ass who looks to his own safety before those he professes to love. I want nothing more to do with you."

Jowan's shoulders slumped again, but he did ask one more question before they left the dungeon. "Solona? Lilley? What happened to her?"

"I…" Solona turned to face him, knowing he could read the sorrow in her eyes. "They sent her away, Jowan. I don't know where. Some other Chantry somewhere."

"At least she's safe. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if they'd executed her over me."

Solona snorted disdainfully. " _Now_  you're worried about that?" She shook her head. "She will likely never trust someone she loves again, because of you, Jowan." She stepped away from his cell. "Don't go anywhere while we're gone."

Alistair let out a quiet snort despite the scowl of anger on his face, hushing himself quickly. Jowan, however, had no energy left for anything, sliding down the wall of his cell until he was sitting on the floor, head hung mournfully.

Solona led the group on, forcing herself not to look back at him.

"You know, I'm getting really tired of these things." Smoking at Alistair’s feet was a pile of ash from yet another of those fire-demon creatures. Solona was pleased that his enchanted blade turned them back well, something it was getting harder and harder for Sten's blade to do – each time it passed through one of the things, it glowed white-hot, and he was worried the steel would become too brittle. It didn't seem to stop him, though; he would just have to get a replacement blade, perhaps from the blacksmith they'd convinced to do work for the village.

"I know what you mean," Solona replied. She was currently allowing electricity to jump from one finger to another, Leliana nearby, watching with fascination. What was it about this one spell that was so easy for her to manipulate? She wasn't drawing on that well of power to do it, but neither did she need to incant. And it didn't remotely tire her out, though she only ever used it on a small scale; a larger bolt might do something to her energy level, and besides that, it would require an incantation. It also happened to be completely useless against these elemental beings of fire. She let the electricity stop with a sigh, looking over to the bard.

"How are you holding up?"

Leliana came closer, placing one hand on her shoulder. "I am fine, Solona. We're all fine."

It was true; everyone was doing really well against the monstrosities they were facing. Solona just wasn't sure  _she_  was fine. Not with the demons, not with the idea of a possessed boy causing the dead to rise – and not with leaving Jowan back there in his cell.

"I suppose we had a lot of practice at the Tower," Solona joked, only half-feeling it. She couldn't help the thoughts that were pouring in, fed by her talk with Leliana about how she feared magic, and only reinforced by her confrontation with Jowan. Most of these thoughts had to do with the Circle's captivity being more than justified, given the damage the creatures had wrought here. So many innocents dead. And the only one who wasn't bothered by it was the completely amoral Morrigan, which did not make Solona feel any better.

And yet, would this happen if mages weren't driven to it out of fear of being made tranquil? Fear of the tight collar and leash kept over them by the Chantry? Would they truly be as dangerous as all this if they were not _driven_ to it?

She shook off her melancholy. "Let's go. That room has to be the main hall. If we haven't run into them yet, then that's where Teagan and the others should be."

They were treated to quite the surprise when they entered the main hall, however. Teagan was performing acrobatic tricks that Solona wasn't even sure she could accomplish with the aid of magic. A quick glance around the room showed her Isolde looking miserable, standing next to a boy of about ten clapping and cheering delightedly at the Bann's antics.  _This must be Connor,_ she thought to herself.

The boy suddenly caught sight of them, Teagan stopping and moving to his side without spoken direction. "So these are our visitors? The ones you told me about, Mother?"

His voice was a curious mix of a child's high voice, and the low, demanding voice of a demon lord. Underneath it all was a menacing undertone that was almost a growl, one that made all the hair on Solona's body stand on end.

As Isolde answered her son, Solona put out the hand holding her staff, halting Sten, who was beginning to pass her, sword held at the ready. "Come no further," she whispered, not daring to take her eyes from the creature ahead of them. "He is under the demon's thrall."

Sten made a low growl in his throat, but held fast.

"Your talent for pointing out the obvious is dazzling," Morrigan whispered to her, coming to stand at her side. They both knew without speaking that she and Solona were the only ones out of the lot of them equipped to deal with a demon. Perhaps Alistair would perform alright, as well, but he was as-yet untested against the seductive words of a demon.

"Max." The dog looked up at her instantly. "Protect the mother, and Teagan if you can." He gave a soft chuff and fell back, moving as close as he could along the wall without drawing notice to himself.

Meanwhile, the demon-boy was continued. "What is it, Mother?"

"She… is a woman, Connor." Isolde was beyond miserable; she was resigned to this madness. She had given up. Solona could hear it in her voice, see it in her face. "Like… me."

The child scoffed. "Not like _you_. She is young, firm, pretty." Hearing such things emerge from such a small boy's mouth made Solona’s skin crawl, and before she had time to think of the wisdom of what she was doing, she was marching forward.

"I see what you are, creature," she spoke, striding toward them, Morrigan at her heel. "Begone from this place!"

"The boy is mine! It was a fair deal!" The boy regarded her with nothing but malice.

"And what deal was that, precisely?" Morrigan asked, seeming far from frightened.

"His father does not perish. And I have a foothold here. My own kingdom of mortals, to do my bidding!" He paused, stepping forward and narrowing his eyes. "I recognize what you are, Warrior. But your power is untrained; you have only found it once, maybe twice. The humans keep your power caged, denying you your abilities. I can teach you."

Solona stopped where she was, still a couple of yards away. Her heart pounded. How could it know about her power just by looking? Unfortunately, now that she'd stopped moving, it seemed she couldn't start again. His gaze held hers, and she was unable to look away, or even blink. The words of the Litany of Andralla came to mind, but she couldn't seem to voice them. A voice that she tried to ignore whispered in her mind that it was a good offer…

"I see the fear in your eyes, human. You do not know how to wield it." He took a step forward. "Let me teach you."

"Move away, foul creature!" Morrigan cried, pulling its attention to her and breaking its spell over Solona. She stumbled, blinked, and then raised her staff before her, trying to call to mind the words to a spell to repulse the creature in front of her.

But it was too late. Where the creature could not seduce, it would take by force. She saw in her mind's eye the thing coming for her, saw it's grin as it chose to have her at its disposal, leaving the boy to crumple before the hearth. She felt its energy try to overtake her, and a fear she'd never known before overcame her, propelling her down a pathway that had not been there a moment before.

The well of power was there again, and she retreated toward it. Only, this time, she could feel the demon pursuing her, glee emanating from it when it understood what was happening, where she was headed. In a fit of desperation, she somehow put on a burst of speed, beating the demon there in enough time to embrace all the power for herself – akin to guzzling it, where she'd only sipped before – propelling her somewhere else.

She did not hear Alistair's cry of confusion; she did not see Isolde go to Connor, Max shadowing her and keeping all except her companions from the pair; she did not see Leliana sprint to her side, calling her name desperately. She knew only light, and Power.

Morrigan's eyes narrowed as the shift occurred. It took her a moment to discern that the demon had relinquished its hold on the boy, and another moment to determine that it had done so in order to take Solona by force. A demon could do such a thing when it already had a foothold in this world – hence how her mother had planned to overpower  _her_. She'd planned on asking Solona about that during a private moment while they were here, but the need to protect the foul villagers and secure the castle had delayed that plan for the moment.

Morrigan began incanting immediately, seeking to produce an exploratory spell on the unconscious warden, but the fool Chantry whore interrupted her.

"Solona!" The redhead knelt by the unconscious form of the mage, calling her name repeatedly.

"She cannot hear you, woman," Morrigan grated through her teeth. "She is in the Fade, battling the demon. Now move aside." She prepared to incant again, and once again she was interrupted.

"What are you doing to her?" Leliana searched her with suspicion in her eyes. Morrigan's own narrowed further in response.

"I am attempting to determine if the demon has a presence inside her, but you will not let me." Her tone was pure ice, causing the wench to visibly wince. Morrigan drew a small amount of satisfaction from the reaction.

"Leliana, can you please help Isolde?" The fool failed templar beckoned the bard from the other side of the room, both of them kneeling next to the unconscious boy. Morrigan was grateful, but she would never admit it. "I can't understand her."  _He can't understand her?_  Listening for a moment, Morrigan heard that the woman had fallen into her mother tongue in her panic over her son, babbling away in Orlesian while kneeling at the boy’s side.

Morrigan rolled her eyes, beginning the spell once more. She was pleasantly surprised when she was allowed to finish it this time around. The spell turned up nothing unusual; Solona was unconscious, true, but that was all. The demon was in the Fade with her, and she should awake like normal, if she survived her encounter.

She moved to perform the same spell for the boy, but before she was even at his side he was waking up.

His eyes fluttered open. "M- Mother?"

"Connor!" Isolde quickly devolved back into her incoherent babbling, which, from Leliana's responses to it, weren't Orlesian anymore, either.

Morrigan rolled her eyes again and moved back to the warden on the floor. She paced around her, examining her. Given the angle at which she'd fallen, with her neck and shoulders twisted as they were, she would be sore when she finally awoke, but they could at least have her moved in the meantime. Assuming the Lady of the castle could pull herself together and have a room prepared.

"So, what happened?" Morrigan’s eyes snapped to the figure that had just come up alongside her. Alistair stood with his weapons stowed, his helm held at his hip. His sweaty hair was ruffled in a way that Morrigan was surprised to admit served to enhance his appearance. He stood looking down at his fellow warden, eyebrows knit in concern.

"'Tis simple." She gestured at the heap on the floor. "The demon decided that Solona would make a much better vessel than the inexperienced boy."

"It is as I feared," rumbled Sten, sheathing his own sword as he came to stand on her other side. "Her new power attracts the malicious spirits." Both men towered over the apostate. It made her… uncomfortable. She was not a small woman – she had a good few inches on Leliana, and was of a height with Wynne and Zevran – but she was unused to male company (or any company, for that matter). It was part of why she set up her own camp-away-from-camp every night. Well, that, and to avoid the endless prattle between the others that she was inevitably pulled into if she chose to spend even a small amount of time around the main fire with them.

Morrigan eyed him. "So you would have her ignore her power, never utilize it?"

"It would be safest."

"You are incorrect," Morrigan stated with authority. "It would be imprudent of her to do so. She must master it. If the power lies dormant, it is still there, still a beacon. If she masters it, she can control it, and fight off those who are drawn to her because of it." Still uncomfortable with their looming forms, she took a step away from them, causing them both to turn to look at her. "It would be  _safest_  if she did not possess any magic at all, but that cannot be undone. She was born with it – the only way to rid her of it would be to kill her. And we can hardly afford to do _that_."

"As much as I hate to admit it, she's right, Sten. That's why the Circle exists: to teach mages to be in control."

"The Circle is a cage to contain people who have powers the Chantry fears because they lack the stomach to simply destroy them outright.”

Alistair frowned. "I didn't say the Circle didn't have its problems. I was simply trying to point out that even  _they_  agree that control is what is sought, not ignorance. Even if they tend toward the cautious."

"That you believe that their intentions are so good and wholesome shows how gullible you truly are. You should see about moving her. I must examine the boy."

She left the two of them arguing about the nature of magic and its proper place, swiftly crossing the distance to Connor once more. She knelt in front of him, completely ignoring the insufferable Orlesians and gripping the boy's chin in her hand, peering into his eyes.

"What is your name, child?"

"Connor." His voice was high and clear, no sign of the undertones that colored it while he was possessed. He peered into her eyes fearfully, wringing his hands in front of him.

"And what is the last thing you remember, Connor?"

"I… Father was sick… And Jowan was being brought to the dungeon." He appeared thoughtful. "Momma put me to bed, and then I woke up here, on the floor." His eyes widened in confusion. "How did I get here? And why are there so many people with swords?" His eyes shifted to Solona, still in a jumble in the middle of the hall. "Who is that?"

Morrigan released his chin, standing and addressing Isolde and Leliana, not bothering to answer his questions – let someone else play nursemaid. "He is free from the creature's thrall, and has no memory of what has transpired. I suggest not enlightening him on what has happened; he is young, and fragile, and has not yet learned enough control to keep it from happening again."

"I- Thank you," the boy's mother stammered, releasing her hold on Leliana and going to her son, hugging him fiercely.

"Thank you, Lady," said Bann Teagan, now fully in control of himself. "I do not know how we can possibly repay you all."

Morrigan rounded on him. "We are not done yet. We do not yet know Solona's fate, and we have no way of knowing when she will wake." She looked toward the other mage. "Or what manner of being we will face when she does."

"Someone should go tell Wynne." The Chantry twit had left the boy and his mother, slipping up next to Morrigan soundlessly as she walked across the hall – one more thing that a Chantry lay sister, even one who had lived a life outside the Chantry, should not be able to do. No, the girl was definitely holding something back…

Morrigan glared at the redhead. "Yes, run to the Circle lapdog as soon as something happens that you do not understand. That is  _certainly_  the only acceptable thing to do."

"There is no need for such hostility, Morrigan." The hurt in the redhead's eyes was unmistakable, and Morrigan silently gave herself a pat on the back for accomplishing that. The woman was insufferable, and Morrigan was learning that her mother had taught her patience of many things, but not for other people.

"Would being polite rid me of your presence more quickly?"

Leliana's eyes narrowed, and she put on a burst of speed, informing Alistair as she passed him that she would be in the village, retrieving their injured companions. At Alistair's word, the mongrel dog that had been nudging Solona’s face and whimpering bounded off after the girl.  _How did I get so lucky as be rid of them both?_

"Do you know yet where to put her?" Morrigan walked up next to Alistair, who was watching Sten lift the other mage over his shoulder. She would have a bruise on her stomach and hips from his armor, no doubt, but there was nothing to be done for it.

"Yes. Isolde is going to lead Sten to a room. You should join me in conference with Teagan. If you don't mind, that is." He still held his helm against his hip, which was jutted out much how a woman might. It looked… strange, and yet it oddly accentuated his form.

She forced herself to look up into his face. "To what end?"

"Our next step," he answered, his expression grave. "Eamon still lies on his deathbed. We have to at least  _try_  to find the Sacred Ashes of Andraste. There is no other option; the mage's poison has no antidote."


	13. Back To Redcliffe

A flash of light, and she was in the Fade. The demon of desire glided toward her like a snake on water, it's form all naked flesh and purple flame. The Power was hers, however, and before the creature could so much as summon a minion, Solona brought her hand in front of her and banished it from existence with a beam of the purest white light.

She stood alone after that, blinking down at her hands. A blink of her eyes turned the light on, cascading forth from her palm and bathing the landscape in its power. Another blink and it was out.

The Power flowed through her. She shot forth another hand, and a bolt of electricity powerful enough to fell a dragon shot out, jumping from the ground to the sky and back down again, the laws of the physical world having no room in this place.

A grin alighted on her lips, and she shot out a hand, this time freezing the ground before her. She openly laughed as she shot out spell after spell, not needing to think of the words, just having to picture what she wanted to happen, what force she wanted to summon. She shot out a fireball, then froze it in mid-air, laughing at the resulting splash of water on the ground before her.

Over and over, different combinations, as strong or as weak as she liked, she performed spell after spell, her energy not flagging in the slightest as she worked her magic. And with the practice, she got better, and faster, and before long, she was running on steps of ice she made for herself as she went, delighting in how good it felt, to have such command over something that had eluded her for so long.

After a time, however, she became still, suddenly aware that embracing the Power so had thrust her from the real world into the Fade, but not knowing how to reverse it. She decided to wander, see if she could figure the problem out. Often, in the Fade, moving one’s dream self changed the surroundings, revealing the answers one sought. So she walked, for how long she did not know, until she saw a figure in the distance.

"Another mortal thrown into the flames and left to burn, I see."

Without knowing how, or questioning it – the Fade harbored knowledge in the air like the sea, and one had only to take a sip to take in some of its flavor – Solona knew it spoke of the Circle's practice of throwing un-tempered apprentices into the Fade to face a demon.

"I am not a mage on my Harrowing. I was followed here by a foul demon, bent on stealing my power from me, but I have banished it from this existence. I have already defeated more demons than I ever thought I alone could even encounter."

"Indeed," said the spirit, placing its hand to its chin and stroking. After a time, it straightened. "But you are an arcane warrior!" it exclaimed finally. She could not see its face, but she could hear its delight. "I have not seen one of your kind in a  _very_  long time! Surely you would care to test your mettle in battle against a foe who has not grown fat on the offerings of your Circle?"

Forgetting all about how she needed to leave, and that she had intended to ask this spirit for that information, she nodded her head. "Yes, that does sound like something I would like." And it was. These demons had grown complacent, had not seen a foe like her in a very long time. Banishing the demon that had chased her here had been like swatting a very fat snail. She longed to test her newfound skill against this foe, this Spirit of Valor.

It gestured behind itself to a rack of weapons. "Choose, and we will begin."

She narrowed her eyes. "Name your terms, first, Spirit."

It chuckled. "A cunning one. Very well. Should you overwhelm me, I will share with you the secret of your newfound arcane power. You will be able to go back to the mortal realm, and you will find that you can enter the Fade at will, and perhaps even master the art of existing in both places at once."

She arched a brow. "And should I fail?" She would think about the rest of his words later. Particularly the idea that she might be able to _straddle the Veil_.

"Simple. You will have to find another way out. However, I imagine your body withers as we speak."

She took a moment to study her reaction to this. She'd been taught to doubt everything said in the Fade, but this was different, she was sure of it. Demons lied, seduced, offered things for nothing – they were too good to be true. This spirit before her was honest, offering her the information she needed, and requiring only a sparring match in return. There was no attempt to coerce her, no gentle persuasions falling from his lips. No; it had no interest in accompanying her back to the physical world. It wished only to fight a worthy opponent, its offer of aid home equal to its own request of a sparring match.

She nodded. "I accept these terms. But I will use a weapon of my own making," she finished, holding up her hand and watching as a wickedly curved sword sprouted from her palm. In her other hand grew a long dagger, and in another moment, she was backing away from the spirit before her, ready in a combat stance, the two weapons gripped in each hand.

She could feel the spirit’s smile, even if she could not see it, and the being of yellow light drew the great sword from his back and joined her on the level ground below them, settling into a stance not unlike Sten's.

The battle was joined a moment later as the being before her lunged, aiming to cut her deeply with the tip of the blade. She jumped to the side, twisting and batting the weapon away from her with both of her own. Without waiting to hit the ground first, she launched herself forward, heedless of the impossibility of her action as she rammed her body into the spirit's form.

Warmth and light passed through her on contact, an exhilarating rush of energy and thought. The spirit brushed her away while she was distracted, bringing its blade to bear once more. But she did not care; she was invigorated, laughing for the joy of this encounter.

She attacked first this time, thankful to Sten for the hours she'd spent sparring with him. Knowing this being's reach far surpassed her own, she got close, dropping to the ground, rolling under its blade and kicking at one of its ankles. That didn't bring it to the ground, but it did stumble, and she took the opportunity to thrust up with the dagger, wounding the spirit on the thigh. She spent no time considering what a wound to a spirit really meant, rolling back out of its reach and gaining her feet more quickly than she ever had in the physical world.

The spirit seemed only to delight in her tactics. It let out a loud belly laugh, pointing its blade in her direction. "You are by far the most skilled opponent I have faced with a blade from the mortal world! Come at me once more!"

And attack it she did. Over and over she feinted, opening up little nicks on its forearms and thighs, taking some herself for her trouble. Time lost all meaning, and she lost herself to the methodical rhythm of their dance, lines blurring until all that she perceived were two balls of light dancing around each other. And she somehow was aware of these two balls both as one of them, and as an outside observer.

Never had she been more invigorated.

After a time, the spirit called a halt. "Enough! You have proven your mettle!" The lines of their forms rematerialized, and it stood before her, hand out, weapon held down at his side. "We are evenly matched." It seemed to be panting, which made Solona realize that she, too, panted, even as she grinned. It was an exhilarating experience, interacting so closely with this benevolent spirit.

But she realized that enough time had passed. She needed to move away from here if she was to live on in the physical realm.

The spirit raised a hand, passing it before her, words not needing to be said, and suddenly the knowledge was there. She bade the spirit a warm farewell, and turned on the spot, leaving the Fade behind.

Her eyes snapped open to a room of stone. She sat up, taking it all in. Her eyes fell on the window on the far wall, seeing that the sun had set. Then they fell to the fire crackling in the hearth, the wardrobe in the corner, and, finally, a familiar form sleeping at the foot of the bed on which she sat.

She smiled down at the sleeping dog, her eyes wandering back up and falling on her staff and other more mundane weapons in the corner.  _The ancient arcane power. It is mine now_. She lifted a hand in front of her, feeling that well of power surge forth within her, no longer hidden, no longer available only with the threat of death. She had taken it all into her, and it was now fused with her, available whenever she liked, as easy to access as it was to draw aside a curtain. Her vision changed, narrowing in on whatever she focused on, and the mere thought of what she wanted produced a perfect crystal of ice in her palm. Her heart pounded furiously as she let out an ecstatic  _whoop_ , letting her hold on the power fade as she leaped from the bed.

When she looked back to the bed, she found Max just opening his eyes. With another shout of delight, she threw herself forward, embracing the dog in a joyful hug. He awoke immediately, struggling for half a second before relaxing, turning, and covering her face with kisses.

"Dear child! You're awake!"

Solona looked up to see that Wynne had just walked in, likely drawn by the commotion of her and Max. She grinned, launching herself from the bed, picking the older mage up and whisking her in circle in the middle of the room.

"I did it, Wynne! I took the power, killed the demon, and a spirit showed me how to manipulate the Fade!"

She put Wynne down, holding her by the shoulders and grinning down at her.

"Slow down, child! You were in the Fade? How did you manage to get there without lyrium?"

"I can't… I can't explain it. I just…  _did_. The power; it's mine now! It was enough to take me there a hundred times over, Wynne!" She took the mage by the hand and pulled, calling the dog to her. "Where are the others? We have to tell them!"

"I do not think this is a wise course of action."

Alistair rolled his eyes. "I  _know_ , Morrigan. You've said that multiple times."  _An hour. For the last several hours._

"And yet you continue to assert that it is the course of action we will be taking."

"We need Eamon  _alive_  to lead the strike against Loghain. No one else has the political clout to do it.”

 

"And  _you_  have said  _that_  multiple times. And  _I_  am unconvinced that you are not simply dragging us on some search for the bones of a madwoman so that the man who raised you will not die." She scowled up at him, yellow eyes piercing directly into his soul.

It was true. He didn't want Eamon to die. He had never apologized for how he'd treated the man when they had last seen each other. He had never thanked Eamon for raising him. And even though Eamon had encouraged the silence around the circumstances of his birth, Alistair had nothing but gratitude for the man.

That did not negate the fact that Eamon  _was_  incredibly popular, and more able to corral the other nobles into agreeing to a Landsmeet.  _Don't forget_ , the selfish little voice in the back of his mind called out,  _that if he lives, then you don't have to be king_.

 

There was that.

 

"I think that can be argued of many people here, Lady," Teagan chimed in, gracing Morrigan with a wan smile, his hand resting on Isolde's shoulder. "He is my brother, and the father of my nephew – I want him to live. Be that as it may, it does not take away the fact that he is the one with the power. The people love  _him_ , follow  _him_."

"One with so much power would indeed make a powerful ally…" Morrigan's yellow eyes disappeared under her eyelids for a moment. She appeared to be thinking, but Alistair knew that look, having been its recipient many times. She was alone was in a room full of idiots, and yet they still managed to make a point she couldn't quite dispute. Though, he guessed, she'd be damned before admitting it out loud.

Alistair looked to Leliana, who was standing, frowning, beside Bann Teagan, then turned to address Sten, standing near the wall like a mountain of bluish-grey flesh. "Do you have an opinion?"

"I agree with the witch," he stated simply.

"On which count?" Zevran countered, leaving his place by Alistair's side to stand before the qunari, peering up into his eyes. "That this is a foolish venture? Or that the arl would make a powerful ally?"

The violet eyes snapped to Zevran's face for the briefest of moments, as if weighing what the elf said. Then, "Yes."

Alistair rolled his eyes. "Right, well. As helpful as  _that_ was, I suppose we can't do anything anyway until Solona wakes…"

Wynne's voice sounded from across the room. "Then I suppose we can make a decision right now." He looked up to the great door ahead of him, seeing Solona being led into the room by Wynne, Max trailing behind them.

Before he could make a comment, however, he heard Leliana give a little squeak, saw a blur of red hair, and then Leliana was being scooped up into Solona's arms, their lips pressed together. After that, Alistair being the gentleman that he was, he saw no more, as he quickly averted his gaze. It did confirm his suspicions about the two women, however, and he was glad everyone else now knew, too; he hated having secrets. The Grey Warden secrets were more than enough for him, thank you very much. He didn't need to be keeping the dalliances among his companions secret.

As he felt his face flush in embarrassment, he searched his feelings on the matter. He  _wanted_  to be jealous, to be bitter toward Leliana for turning him down in favor of his fellow warden. But he couldn't seem to muster that up. He just couldn't see how that would be fair to either of them, especially when Leliana had been completely honest with him about how she felt. And she was so kind to him.

Solona was kind, as well. At first, she hadn't been, choosing to sneer “templar” like a dirty word, even though he had never actually been inducted into their ranks, and berating him for things he'd never personally done. But as he got her to talk more about what had happened to her, and how it made her feel; and as they discussed her magic more and more, its implications for how she would fare against the darkspawn, how it would eventually be incorporated into her fighting style; and as they continued to get their asses kicked by the tiny woman now in the mage's arms, they had begun to build a rapport, a camaraderie. Hell, she was starting to feel like a sister to him. Certainly, a very good friend.

Both of the women were his friends.

And that was the rub: they were his friends. How could he possibly resent either of them for realizing their feelings for each other?  And it’s not like it was anyone’s fault; feelings just _happened_. They didn’t develop feelings just to scorn _him_.

A gentle clearing of the throat caught his attention, and he looked up to see Wynne staring at the two with a frown on her face. They'd stopped kissing, simply standing with arms around each other. He could hear the soft lilt of Leliana's voice speaking into the mage's ear, Solona bent slightly to reach Leliana's upturned face. He knew that none of the words were meant for him to hear, so he wasn't too disappointed that he couldn't understand what she was saying, though he was intensely curious all the same.

With a final, fierce squeeze, they parted, Leliana looking sheepishly to Wynne before attempting to move away from Solona. Instead of letting them part, however, the mage followed the bard, paying no heed to Wynne's continued look of disapproval.  _She is gonna get it later_ , he sing-songed to himself, unable to keep the slight smirk from his lips. He couldn't help but smile as he noticed the look Leliana shot back at Solona, the pull of a smile at her lips as she gazed first at their hands, then to Solona, then to the rest of the room, before-

"Voyeur."

His eyes snapped to Morrigan. "Hey! I wasn't… voyeur-ing! Besides, how am I  _not_  supposed to look? They were right there!"

"I dare say it is difficult to control your urges. You smell like the dog – it is not too far a leap to imagine you share other traits, as well." Her lips curled up just slightly, showing her amusement at her own joke.

Max let out an indignant huff as he came to sit by the table.

Alistair opened his mouth, a witty retort right on the tip of his tongue, when-

"I think that is quite enough," Wynne snapped, striding over to the table, frowning every few seconds at Solona and Leliana's intertwined hands. Solona, for her part, just looked around with a faint smile on her face.

"What did I miss?"

Alistair snorted. "Well, let's see. You collapsed in the hall after the demon left Connor's body for yours, and we had to drag your ass up to your room. So, you know. Nothing much.”

Solona immediately adopted a guilty expression. "Sorry to worry everyone." She looked up then, locking eyes with Morrigan. "But it definitely served as the catalyst we were looking for."

Morrigan's cat-like eyes focused, the pupils narrowing to slits. "You found this well of power once more?"

Solona nodded, but Alistair did not miss how her eyes slid to both Teagan and Isolde, standing next to each other at the conference table, both looking incredibly curious. "Perhaps we can discuss it later… What were you talking about when I came in?"

"Well," Teagan said, looking curiously as the mage warden, but Alistair knew that he had not missed that he was not invited to ask what they all meant about her power. "We were discussing your next step in regards to Eamon."

"What are our options?" Solona asked, finally letting go of Leliana's hand in favor of leaning both hands on the table they all stood around.

Teagan grabbed some documents sitting in front of Alistair and passed them across the table to his fellow warden. "Your… colleague in the dungeon was questioned, but he didn't know what the poison was, and he had administered all of it before he was caught, so it cannot be examined. Isolde had sent the knights out to search for anything on the Urn of Sacred Ashes, as you know. What I forgot to tell you earlier is that they weren't just chasing a rumor or a myth. These documents are copies of some of the notes from a Brother Genetivi of Denerim, who was under Eamon's employ for a few years before returning to Denerim recently. He returned because he needed the Chantry's library there, having found evidence in Eamon's library to the validity of the Urn."

"Remarkable," Solona breathed, eyes focused on the scribbled writing before her for a few minutes, her brows furrowing slightly in that way Alistair felt he'd seen a thousand times already. "He needed to verify a location in Denerim, but he was almost certain that they existed, and had a hunch where they were. Incredible."

"Lunatics are often  _sure_  what they see is actually before them," Morrigan said dismissively, eyes narrowed at her fellow mage. "That does mean their hallucinations are, indeed, standing in front of them."

Alistair rolled his eyes, but a warning glance from Wynne kept his mouth shut tight.

"True," Solona said, setting the documents down and meeting her gaze. "But Eamon is an ally we  _must_  have, if at all possible."

"Why? Why cannot this Bann take his throne and lead the armies of Men?"

"Because," Isolde finally stepped in, looking into the witch's eyes defiantly. Alistair was suddenly curious as to who would win in a brawl: the ever-grumpy Morrigan, or the noblewoman who was not accustomed to being questioned. "Eamon is the only one who can possibly sway the nobility to act. Loghain is a hero to Ferelden. Nobody will question him openly unless my husband does so first. You  _need_  him to survive if you are to turn away the Blight."

 

_And there is the true power and confidence behind the throne, as the saying goes._

 

"She is right." Leliana stepped forward, locking her gaze with Morrigan's – a far cry from the last time a confrontation was forced between the two of them. "Loghain turned away my countrymen, repelled the Orlesian occupation. He is almost untouchable. The only other Ferelden aside from the king and Loghain that was ever discussed in Orlais was Eamon. I always assumed it was because he was charming enough to convince an Orlesian noblewoman –" she looked to Isolde and smiled "– to live in a country and among a people that most of Orlais considers to be beneath them. But I have spoken with some of the servants as they came back to the castle, and the villagers while I retrieved Wynne and Zevran. His people  _love_  him. He is a good, kind man who is in touch with his subjects, as well as his fellow nobles. He has the unique ability to be able to rouse the spirits of both, and that is what will be needed to defeat the Blight upon this land."

Morrigan stared for a moment before letting out a huff of disgust and crossing her arms across her chest. "Very well. You wanted my opinion. I gave it. I shall abide by the wardens' decision, as foolish as it may be."

"We thank you for your opinion, your Almighty-" Alistair began with a sweeping bow, but was quickly cut off by another directive from Wynne to stow it. He decided not to try her patience. But he did  _so_  long to wipe that smirk off the witch's face.

"I think Leliana and Lady Isolde are correct," Solona said after a moment. "If it's more than just a myth, it's worth at least going to speak with this Brother."

"I agree," Alistair chimed in immediately.

"Of course," muttered Morrigan, but at a stern look from Wynne, she miraculously held her tongue from anything further.

"So when do we leave?" Zevran asked, rubbing his hands together like an eager child.

Leliana eyed him suspiciously. "Why so eager, Zevran?"

He winked, and Alistair just knew something lewd and lecherous was about to come out of his mouth. "There is a most fine brothel in the city that I wish to visit," he responded with a wink.  _There it is…_

"Excuse me?" Lady Isolde stared at the elf, her eyebrows almost to her hairline.

"Oh," Solona muttered, shoving the elf on the shoulder. "Really, Zevran. Learn some damn manners."

"You are one to talk, Warden," he countered, looking up at her with a smirk. "Swearing like that, in front of the arlessa."

"I…" She cut herself off, glaring at him. "You have a point." She turned to the arlessa. "I beg your pardon, Lady Isolde. None of us is used to company of such stature."

"It is… quite all right," she replied, staring at the both of them as if unsure whether to be offended or amused.

"Well," said Alistair, calling attention to himself. "I suppose we should leave in the morning, then… I think we're done for the moment."

Standing a little taller, Isolde spoke up again. "If you are decided, I have had rooms made ready for all of you. I insist you rest at least a full day before you leave for Denerim. It is nearly three weeks’ time on the road, and you have been through a dreadful undertaking to save my home and my son. I know you have been awake all night and all day; surely you are all beyond exhausted?"

Before Alistair could so much as protest, she had called in servants, and he and his companions were all being rather bossily escorted to individual bedchambers.

Wynne stood in the hallway outside Solona's bedchamber. She was in the midst an internal debate, her hand poised to knock on the door.

_She is being bull-headed, reckless. She does not have the time for romance with a Blight! She cannot possibly have the focus for her magic and her duty to defeat the Darkspawn if she is busy dallying with Leliana. And what of Leliana? She is still so bruised from her past. What if Solona does not take this seriously, and injures the woman? She is a sweet girl, opening herself up yet again, after it backfired so spectacularly the last time. What if they both end up hurt?_

She had run through all of her arguments, and was determined to confront Solona about it as soon as she could.

A giggle rose up, muffled by the thick wooden door, pitched high and colored with the soft tones of Leliana's voice. Wynne narrowed her eyes and steeled her resolve, rapping her knuckles against the door.

It opened a moment later, Solona standing in the doorway, Leliana just behind her.

"Wynne? Something wrong?"

"I… wanted to speak with you, Warden." Her eyes moved to Leliana, then back to the younger mage. "In private, if you don't mind."

"Sure." Solona, looked behind her, murmuring something indistinct before following Wynne into the hall, closing the door behind her. "What can I do for you, Wynne?"

Wynne hesitated. Solona clearly had no idea of her disapproval, and she suddenly realized that if she entered this conversation on the offensive, she would never get through to the woman before her, young and hot-headed as she was.

Finally, the elder mage decided on her tactic. "You're quite taken with each other, aren't you?"

Solona's skin immediately darkened, taking on a slightly reddish hue. "Yes," she murmured. "Yes, we are."

"I admit, I had noticed the way she looks at you, the familiarity with which you speak, how she always finds a way to place herself near you. I had not imagined it was romantic in nature until today, however…"  _Irresponsible. Foolish._

Solona's response was to smile almost wistfully. "She does do that, doesn't she?"

Wynne groaned internally. "It's almost too sweet for my tastes, and I'm an old lady who should be making lace hearts and fuzzy blankets with animal motifs."

"Well, you're hardly the average old lady, Wynne. You are formidable. I bet if we sparred you would knock me out before I knew what hit me."

"Yes, well…" She took a deep breath, deciding a more direct approach was in order. "Now that I know the nature of your blossoming relationship, I wanted to know where you thought it was going. Leliana is a remarkable girl, sincere and guileless, and she has opened her heart to you. I would not like to see her hurt." Let Solona think this her main concern here, so as to take her by surprise with her actual point.

Solona looked almost wounded. "I would  _never_  hurt her, Wynne. And as far as where it's going, we're taking it one day at a time. Though, I confess that I feel quite deeply for her." Solona frowned. "Why the scrutiny?"

"You are a Grey Warden," Wynne burst, her patience wearing thin. She couldn't decide if the woman before her was being deliberately obtuse, or if she really was so irresponsible as to put these selfish ideals before her duty. "You have responsibilities which supersede your personal desires!"

Solona just frowned more deeply, her stance becoming subtly more defensive. "I have not forgotten about my responsibilities, Wynne. I can handle them and my relationships."

"Love is ultimately selfish, Solona. It demands that one be devoted to a single person, who may fully occupy one's mind and heart, to the exclusion of all else." Wynne’s voice softened, her expression falling some. The realization had hit her that the young woman before her was incredibly naïve in the way the world worked. She'd never experienced romance, never traveled or had friends outside of the Circle. Wynne could afford some sympathy, even though she would urge the warden away from developing this relationship further, at least until the Blight was over.

"A Grey Warden cannot afford to be selfish, Solona. If you continue this relationship, you may be forced to make a choice between saving your love…" She paused, letting that sink in. "And saving everyone else. And then what would you do?"

Solona's frown deepened even more, her arms now crossing over her chest. "And what am I supposed to do, tell Leliana to go away? We're in it now – I cannot undo it, not after the things I've seen of her, the things we know about each other." She paused, her eyes softening, looking into Wynne's eyes almost beseechingly. "She has captured my heart, Wynne. What other course is there to me now that we are here?"

Wynne sighed. "Nothing is certain, Solona, not in these times. You cannot take anything for granted. I want you to be aware of these possible consequences."

Solona scowled. "I am old enough to make my own decisions, Wynne. You wanted to travel with us, and I agreed. If you disapprove of something I do, I will listen to your guidance, but it is ultimately  _my decision_. Leliana and I will handle the things that come our way when they do. And in the meantime… I would see where this might lead."

Wynne frowned, but she had to get a handle on her disappointment and anger. "If you insist. I have given my advice. Do with it what you will."

Wynne turned on the spot and marched to her room, leaving Solona frowning at her retreating form. She only had a few minutes before their conference as a group, and she needed a moment to calm herself.

Sten stood in the corner of the room, observing all around him. He found it refreshing that the rooms in this large building had room for the horns upon his head – he grew weary of paying attention to where he could stand to his full height. And the doorways here fit him with little trouble.

He took a moment to determine where in the Qun those in this room would fit once the qunari had brought the Qun to these lands. The large warden with the shield could possibly be made Sten. He had strength and great skill with his weapons. He even showed aptitude for learning new styles, which would be important, since he would never overpower a native qunari with sheer strength. Because of that lack of power, he may need to be reassigned as craftsman.

The meddlesome elf, who gossiped like a fishwife and could not seem to leave Sten be, would never be allowed to follow the Qun as he was. Most likely, he would be killed, or chased off. Sten did not think it would be a great loss to the qunari, despite his obvious skill. Perhaps the Ben-Hassrath would be able to re-educate him? His skill would certainly be useful to them.

The orange-haired one would serve well as a craftswoman, with her swift hands and cunning mind; though he doubted she could be turned away from this Maker they seemed to be obsessed with in this land. Perhaps the Ben-Hassrath would have success with her, as well?

The mages were  _sarebaas_ , though of great skill and discipline. He did not know if any of them were attainable, however; far too likely, they had been unleashed for too long, and would not ever submit to an  _arvaarad_. Though the one who had seen the most summers might eventually submit to the Qun, with time.

He looked around once more. All of his companions were present except the mage warden and the orange-headed female. He had been the first here, after being led to his sleeping quarters. He would normally attempt to sleep in the woods, but he would have to travel miles in order to find suitable privacy this close to a settlement of this size. And he knew enough to know he would likely be attacked if found alone without his companions, so he had stripped the bedding – the bed being too small for him, and the mattress liable to be destroyed by his horns – and arranged a suitable sleeping space for himself on the floor, by the firepit.

"What's taking them so long?" the male warden whined, shooting a glance to the elder mage as she completed a circuit of the room.

The elder mage stopped and replied, "I suspect Solona is upset with me. I… spoke to her, about the little display we all witnessed earlier."

"Another way in which she cannot be a woman," Sten grunted. He still didn't understand how she could be both a woman and a warrior.

"What? I don't even… Never mind, Sten. I'll ask you about that later." The yellow-haired man turned back to the elder mage. "You confronted her? You have some problem with them?"

"Yes," the mage responded, standing to her full height defiantly – which was just to the warden’s nose. "She is the leader of this group, a Grey Warden who has a strict duty. There is a Blight, and she is going through a remarkable magical transformation. This is no time for romantic dalliances."

The pale0haired elf spoke up. "Ah, but my dear Wynne, perhaps you forget what it is to be young and in love?"

Morrigan laughed. "As if a lecherous cretin such as yourself has ever known anything of the sort?"

As Zevran turned to respond to the witch, Sten tuned him out. Instead, he focused on the elder mage, who had gone still as stone at the elf's words, the blood draining from her face. She had clearly experienced this romantic love the humans seemed to hold in such high esteem. Some qunari did, as well, but it was not the basis of all like it seemed to be in this world.  It was a companionship, a friendship, but it was not allowed to come in the way of one’s duty to the Qun, and it was not for the purposes of mating.

The elf and the witch's argument was interrupted by the arrival of the mage warden and the orange-haired woman. They were again clasping hands, and Sten scowled, wondering again how they could be called women, fill the role of women in their society, and yet still be warriors. And mates, apparently. He was sure he would never understand the people of this land.

The taller woman smiled indulgently. "Bickering again?" The newcomers came to stand around the small table in the office they'd been given the use of at the male warden's request. "I can't leave you alone for fifteen minutes, I swear."

"Tell us what happened, Warden," Sten said, tiring quickly of the close quarters. He could usually easily ignore his companions in camp, leaving to hunt or walk a perimeter of the camp if the constant chatter became too much for him to handle. Here, in the confines of this room, he was growing impatient. He wanted to know what had happened to her, make a decision, and leave.

"Right to the point," she looked up at him with that near constant half-grin. "I like it."

He listened as she told her tale, ignoring the cries of astonishment, the disbelieving questions, the expressions of awe. He remained silent until he was sure she was finished, then asked her the thing that was most important to him.

"You are free of the demon?"

The mage's eyes snapped up to his, searching his face quizzically before nodding once, firmly. "Yes, Sten. I destroyed it. I watched it happen; I felt the Fade shift around me."

"Good. I will be in my quarters, if I am needed." He turned and left, not bothering to have a servant show him where to go, as he had made sure to memorize the few routes through the castle he would likely need to take while they were here.

He could hear them wondering at his behavior as he walked, but he paid them no mind. He knew that they did not understand him, just as he did not understand them. But their understanding would come one day soon, when the Qunari of Par Vollen came to this land and made its people submit to the Qun. Until then, he would travel with them to destroy the Blight, but he refused to listen as they prattled on, exchanging gossip instead of information.

Leliana watched Sten's retreating form. He went shirtless, as the warriors among his people tended to when not in armor, his giant muscles rippling as he moved. She usually had a hard time pulling two words strung together from him, though she strongly suspected he did a lot of listening. As he did just now, before assuring himself Solona was free of a demon and then leaving. Clearly, he'd gotten all the information he needed.

"That was… odd."

Solona snorted. "Tell me about it."

"Back on track, people." Alistair pulled their attention back to the table. "So you got pushed into the Fade like that demon did to us in the Tower?"

Solona shook her head. "No. _I_ drew it there."

Morrigan spoke next. "Are you saying you entered the Fade on your own,  _without_  the aid of lyrium or blood magic?"

"Yes. That is  _exactly_  what I am saying. The same pathway opened up to me as I fled the demon, and I realized, too late to stop, that the demon was going for the power, not for me. The only thing I could do was embrace it – all of it – take it into me, before the demon could reach it."

"And that was more than enough power to enter the Fade," Wynne finished for her, a look of awe on her face. "You drew the demon there to battle."

Solona just nodded. Leliana could not read the look on the three mages' faces, but she could tell that this was monumental. "Solona." The mage turned to look at her. "Does this mean you can access this power at any time?"

"Yes," she replied simply.

A shiver went through the bard at that answer. She was so worried about Solona when she had collapsed, frightened that she had gone somewhere the bard could not follow. She had fretted and worried, desperate for something to occupy her time as she waited for the mage to awake.

Then she had, and Leliana had been overjoyed, throwing herself into Solona's arms without a second thought, forgetting that they were trying to keep their blossoming relationship to themselves for now. Solona didn't seem to mind, however, and Leliana was almost surprised by how relieved she was to realize that Solona was not ashamed or embarrassed. So relieved that she had forgotten to speak with Solona about this newest revelation with her magic.

_I am as a foolish child, in love for the first time._

"How?" Wynne's voice brought Leliana back into focus immediately.

"I just-" Solona shrugged "-  _can_."

"Show us," Morrigan demanded.

Leliana's heart immediately began pounding. She was coming around on magic, reconciling Solona's abilities with what she'd learned about those abilities. But this arcane warrior trance still terrified her. "Morrigan, I really don't think-" she began, but was cut off by Solona's raised hand.

"It's alright, Leliana. I can do it."

"But every time you have thus far, you have lost consciousness," Leliana pleaded. "You should not try it so soon after having woken up."

Solona just smiled confidently. "I will be fine. Practice makes perfect, right?"

The mage closed her eyes, her head drifted up a little like she was in thought, and then her eyes snapped open. They glowed, just as Alistair had described from the first occurrence. Unlike then, however, she seemed to be completely herself, wearing the same smile she had been gracing Leliana with before. She raised a hand, and in her palm she held fire. Leliana gasped, flinching away from its heat.

"Truly impressive," Morrigan murmured, then stepped away from the table. "Fight with me, Solona."

"What?" Solona's voice was the same, and yet somehow different. It was like her voice resonated with its own natural overtones. "You want to spar?  _Now_?" As she spoke, the overtones clarified into an astounding thing of multiple tones and pitches.

 

"Only if you are  _able_ ," Morrigan answered, clearly trying to bait the young woman.

"Oh, blast it. Yes, alright." It was strange to see a being of such power, such authority, speaking with the same mannerisms as the woman Leliana had been kissing not too many minutes before. It was difficult to reconcile that they were the same person.

The two moved into the middle of the room, Morrigan immediately incanting, throwing a bolt of frozen air at the other mage. Solona sidestepped it with uncanny speed, shooting out her hand to throw the small fireball at Morrigan. Morrigan raised her staff, barely getting out a shouted word in time for an invisible barrier to spring up, causing the fireball to dissipate harmlessly. Morrigan's staff came down, pointing at Solona, absorbing the next attack Solona sent her way. Her lips moved, and a blast of electricity left the staff, engulfing the warden.

Leliana gasped, ready to run to Morrigan and make her stop. Alistair placed a hand on her shoulder, however, stopping her and calling attention to Solona. Instead of cooking under the energy of the electricity, Solona was gathering the energy between her outstretched hands. With a shoving motion, it suddenly flew at Morrigan in a tight ball, hitting her square in the chest and exploding, throwing her to the floor, her robes smoking.

"Morrigan!" Leliana was more shocked still to see Alistair run to the witch's side, taking her head in one hand and peeling back the charred remains of her robes from her stomach. Wynne was there almost as quickly, murmuring her healing spells, knitting the broken and charred flesh.

Leliana, rooted to her spot, looked back to Solona to find the warden smiling in triumph. But almost as soon as Leliana's eyes landed on her, the warden's smile wavered, and then her eyes stopped glowing, and she was rushing to Morrigan's side, apologies spilling from her, her voice normal once more.

"You have unlocked the key to your difficulties," Leliana heard Morrigan murmur. The witch's voice was weak, like she'd been having difficulty breathing. "Well done."

Solona let out a disbelieving half-laugh. "I nearly kill you, and you congratulate me?"

Slapping Alistair away, Morrigan pushed herself to be sitting, taking several deep breaths. "I would have killed you with that spell had you not retaliated. It was only fair, and the only acceptable reply to such an offensive spell."

"I-"

"Hush," Wynne cut her off gently. "You can discuss the finer points of battle magic tomorrow. You need to rest after that little  _display_ , Morrigan."

"Will you never cease your coddling, old woman?!" Morrigan's crack held a little more bite than usual, but as she tried to stand, she faltered, Alistair's quick reflexes the only thing that kept her from hitting the ground once more.

"Yes, 'coddling' is absolutely what I'm doing." Wynne turned, a small triumphant smile upturning the corners of her lips. She caught Leliana's gaze, and the bard couldn't help but return it. Any chance to throw Morrigan's barbs back in her face was a chance to be taken, and celebrated, as they did not often present themselves.

"Here, I'll come with you so you don't fall on your ass again." Leliana looked back to see Alistair helping the witch to her feet and handing over her staff, a smirk on his face. He let go as she leaned her weight on it, and he, Morrigan, and Wynne left the room, Morrigan bemoaning their fussing as they went.

"I wonder if she will ever accept help from anyone," Solona mused, watching as they disappeared.

"From your description of her mother, I would wager she has never known a moment of tenderness in her life," Zevran commented.

Leliana gave him an appraising look. "There you go again, Zevran, surprising me."

He shrugged. "It was merely an observation. It would explain a great deal about her, certainly." He knelt to pet Max, who had come trotting in through the door when Wynne and Alistair had opened it. The dog groaned in pleasure at the elf's touch, rolling immediately onto his back.

Solona smirked. "Looking at him now, you'd never know that he's a vicious beast who could break your arm faster than you can say his name."

"Nor that he's smart enough to understand what you just said," Leliana added, kneeling on the other side of the dog to give him her own belly rub.

"So," Solona began, crossing her arms over her chest and watching the trio on the floor with an amused smile on her face.

Leliana looked up, smirking a little. "Yes?"

"Denerim next."

Leliana saw Solona's smile immediately falter, saw the look of panic, of fear, mar her features. "Your parents," the bard breathed, comprehension dawning as she got to her feet.

Solona nodded. "Them, yes. And templars. And Loghain's guards. I am too easily recognized. I cannot hide the mark on my face, nor the color of my hair and skin, Leliana. They will have descriptions of me, and I look drastically different from most of my countrymen."

Leliana reached up her hand to cup Solona's face. "Dear one, we will find a way. You can stay camped outside the city while the rest go to this Brother Genetivi and-"

Solona's eyes narrowed at that suggestion, her eyebrows furrowing as she cut Leliana off. "I do not like the idea of being left behind, especially alone out in the woods, while others do  _my_  duty."

Leliana quirked a brow at this, feeling the sly smile overtake her features as she let her hand fall to the mage's arm, the muscles there responding to her light touch. "I did not say you would be staying alone, Solona," she murmured.

The mage just stared down at her for a moment, before her scowl was swiftly replaced by a wide grin. "I… think I could manage that," she said, low and suggestive.

Zevran coughed, drawing Leliana's attention. "Perhaps I will go meet with the others. Since you two will not be joining us in the city…"

She felt her face heat, receiving a knowing wink and lecherous grin from the elf before he sauntered out of the room after the others.

Leliana felt Solona's arms wrap around her from behind, felt the mage's cheek nuzzle up next to her own. Her hands slid across the expanse of Leliana's belly before her arms tightened around her waist, making her cheeks flush hotter, at the same time as a chill ran down her spine.

"So."

Leliana smiled. "So."

"I seem to have you all to myself once more."

Leliana turned in the circle of Solona's arms, reaching her arms up to loop loosely around the mage's neck. Exerting a gentle pressure, she pulled the mage down into a soft kiss. She could  _feel_  the desire simmering under the surface in the other woman, held tightly in check. She felt guilty about that; she didn't have to imagine the frustration in kissing and touching and feeling the other woman against her but not going further, because she felt the same frustration. But she really didn't want to attempt to make love, only to have the same flashbacks ruin it at an even  _more_  inopportune time.

And then there were the scars.

Her whole back was covered in scars of varying shapes and sizes: her shoulders, the small of her back, her buttocks, even her thighs and calves. They had spared no inch of her, making it incredibly difficult to find clothing that would cover enough of her body. She had been whipped, sliced open, prodded with hot irons. The skin she could reach was no longer smooth to the touch, small hills and valleys of scar tissue decorating her skin now. Certain positions were no longer comfortable to lie or sit in, the skin stretching awkwardly, pulling too tightly. It had taken months for her to be able to draw a bow, and not just because she had lost a great deal of weight and strength while captive. Months of stretching, exercising, rubbing oils where she could reach, and still she didn't have the same dexterity she did before Marjolaine betrayed her, and still she looked disfigured. She wasn't sure if she was ready to show all of that to anyone, even Solona.

She pulled back from the kiss before it could turn more passionate, snuggling into the mage's embrace, enjoying the warmth and comfort even as she cursed herself for a coward.  _I am still a vain woman…_

"So you never told me what Wynne wanted out in the hall," she said, remembering how their last kisses were interrupted.

Solona stiffened slightly. "Oh. That."

She pulled away enough to look up at the taller woman. "What did she want?"

Solona sighed. "She reprimanded me for…" She gestured at the pair of them. "Us."

Leliana's eyebrows rose in shock. "Reprimand? What ever for?"

Solona let out a low growl, frowning slightly. "Duty. She says that I can't do my duty and have romance. She decided to play the game of 'what would you do if Leliana had to die in order to save all of Ferelden?'"

"I…" Leliana didn't know what to say. What  _did_  you say to that? And now that it was proposed, wasn't Wynne right? Leliana was asking Solona to have to make a terrible decision, if it came down to that. She had forgotten, in her recent joys, that they were fighting against all odds to gather an army and get the two remaining wardens in Ferelden within sword's reach of the arch demon. Asking Solona to make a choice between her own life and another's…

 

"Hey." Solona's voice pulled her back, and she refocused to find the mage staring intently into her eyes. " _You_  are not a mistake, Leliana.  _This_  is not a mistake."

"But-"

A finger over her lips silenced her. "What would you have me do? Send you away?"

Leliana shook her head vigorously. "No! I would see this through to the end! I can help you make these alliances!"

Solona smiled. "That's my girl. No, now that we're in it, we're just going to have to go all the way through, face challenges as they come. It is too late to try to deny feelings or attraction, I think."

Leliana sighed. "You are right. Perhaps if we had been wise at the beginning… But it would just be awkward, and, honestly, I do not think I could do it, Solona." She looked up into the mage's eyes, searching for – and finding – her feelings being reciprocated there. "I do not think I could stay away from you. Not now."

Their kiss was soft, gentle, Solona still tasting of honey and tea, the earthy aromas of leather, paper, and wood mixing together to form Solona's signature scent. She gripped the mage's tunic tightly, wanting to pull her even closer, but knowing that this was not the place, and that she was not yet ready. So instead, she pushed them apart, nuzzling once again into the mage's chest, folding her arms between them as Solona engulfed her in an embrace.

"So this alone-time." Solona's voice was low and her breath blew over Leliana's neck. The bard shivered involuntarily, wondering how long her vanity would continue to outweigh her own desire. "Outside Denerim." Again, a blow of breath, causing the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck to move, sending goose bumps all down that side of her body, from shoulder to ankle. "Just the two of us."

"Yes?"

Her voice was a low purr, now. "It just seems the perfect time to…" Solona ran one hand up Leliana's back, running her nails back down again before settling in the small of her back. "Get more _acquainted_." Her breath blew over Leliana's ear.

But it was all a little too much, a little too obvious, and it just made Leliana grin and giggle into the mage's tunic. "Your gifts of subtlety are somewhat lacking, my friend."

Solona let out a laugh, abandoning her attempt at seduction and simply hugging the bard to her. Leliana appreciated it. Feeling pressured would raise Leliana's defenses. By accepting her gentle admonishment, in the attitude it was meant, she set Leliana at ease, relaxing her further, allowing her to enjoy their embrace without feeling that she was withholding anything.

They stood for moments without time; however, they needed to vacate the room eventually. So, with great reluctance, she parted from the mage, taking her hand and leading them off to sleep, Max trotting dutifully behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you ask, I realize that there is the potential here for Solona to be invincible, and I already have thoughts on that. She will not be. This will not be limitless power, nor will it have limitless applications. We'll see that further in the future.
> 
> A slightly more beefed-up role for Isolde, because I refuse to believe she is the whiny, incompetent woman portrayed in the game. Her and Jowan both bothered me in-game. Jowan's just SUPER whiny, with persistent concerned-eyebrows. Isolde is the same, though she at least has an excuse. I just don't believe she could be that vapid. So. She gets to take charge and butt heads with Morrigan, just a tad.
> 
> I decided to avoid the blood ritual and going to the Circle because this was just the perfect opportunity for Solona to come into her power. It also provided the opportunity to incorporate things I liked from the Fade but were kind of stupid (in my humble opinion) in the gameplay, like the Spirit of Valor. In addition, I don't think Solona would condone the blood ritual, nor would she kill a young innocent like Connor, nor would she go back to the Circle for their help. Plus, I've been playing with the idea that Solona's power comes from her closer connection to the Fade. So if that's true, then once she comes into her power, she should be able to enter the Fade at will, yes? She shouldn't need blood magic or lyrium.


	14. The Road To Denerim

"I saw what you were doing back there."

Alistair looked up from his conversation with Solona to see Leliana walking alongside Sten. The giant qunari looked down at her.

"Oh?"

"Don't play innocent with me." Her tone was playful, amused.

"What do you think she's going on about?" Solona asked in a whisper.

"I don't know, but let's get closer." He winked, eliciting a mischievous grin from his fellow warden.

"What are you talking about?" Sten's tone was evasive, and Alistair was struck with the realization, as he and Solona crept to walk a little closer to the pair, that he'd never seen Sten express anything but irritation and disdain. _Leave it to a bard…_

"I saw you picking flowers earlier! When we stopped for our midday meal!" Now Leliana was openly laughing.

"… No I wasn't." Sten looked up and away very quickly. Solona stifled a snort.

"You were!"

"They were medicinal…"

Leliana chuckled. "You're a big softie!"

Sten grunted. "We will never speak of this again."

"Sooooooftie!" Leliana sing-songed, giggling and letting the big man lengthen his stride to get away from her.

Solona called out, "Is there a reason you're baiting him, Leliana?"

The bard just giggled again, slowing her steps to fall in next to the wardens. "He is a big softie! He acts tough and domineering, but underneath, he is picking flowers! And he is always playing fetch with Max! Not exactly what the stories say about his people."

"If it's all the same to you," Alistair sighed, " _please_ , don't piss off the giant wall of muscle and steel.  _You_  may be able to knock him down when you spar, but  _I_  still can't."

"I don't-" Solona stopped mid-sentence, mid-stride, cocking her head to the side as if she were trying to listen to something. "What is that?"

Alistair, having stopped at almost the same moment, knew immediately what she meant. "Darkspawn."

Solona's head snapped to face him. "Yes. That's what it feels like?"

Alistair nodded, falling back to the cart for his helm, leaving Solona to explain briefly what their exchange meant to Leliana.

"What is it?" Zevran asked him.

"Darkspawn." He found his helm immediately, slamming it on his head and buckling it into place. "Strategy?"

"How many?" The Antivan was already leading the donkey and cart off the road, tying the animal's lead to a tree trunk.

"Maybe a dozen," Alistair replied, retrieving his shield and buckling it into place on his arm.

"You, Sten, and the dog charge. Leliana and I will flank around while the mages cast their spells from afar."

"Sounds like a plan," Alistair replied, sending the Antivan off to find the mages while he sought Sten.

The big man was waiting for him, sword drawn. He didn't even need to be told anything, falling into step beside the warden, following Alistair's lead as he ran in the direction his senses told him he could find their quarry.

Cresting a small hill, off the road, he slowed, seeking out the enemies of his blood.

"There," he said, picking up speed again as the giant immediately outpaced him. As he reached the bottom of the hill, Max passed him as well, just as the first battle cry of their enemies sounded. He watched as Sten closed with them, as Max barreled into a group, knocking three to the ground, and put on an extra burst of speed. His blood pounded in his ears – he had not faced this foe since the night of Ostagar. He was surrounded by the familiar sound of steel clashing against corroded metal armor, the familiar stench of his enemy's flesh, the familiar bitter taste in his mouth as adrenaline was pumped through his bloodstream.

And then the battle was joined, and he had no time to think about anything else. He met his first foe with a bash of his shield to its face, his sword lashing out a moment later and taking it in the throat. He barely flinched as its dark blood spurted over him, yanking his sword free and turning to his left to catch a blow meant for his head with his shield. His answering blow was knocked aside, but he simply followed through with the motion, bringing the sword back in low and gutting the creature before bashing it and knocking it to the ground. He brought his sword down, silencing its death rattle, and cast about for another enemy.

He was faced with an emissary. He didn't have time to think, to strategize or plan his tactics against such a foe. He simply did the first thing that came to mind, which was to take the three running steps to it, slamming into it full-force, shield-first. It stumbled backward, its guttural chanting dying in its throat, dazed momentarily. Then it was falling to the ground, an arrow protruding from its throat.

He would have to thank Leliana later; he had no time to even acknowledge the save at the moment. He looked around, satisfied to see that half of the darkspawn lay dead upon the ground. He moved to engage one that was sending arrows in the direction of his female companions, but it was suddenly frozen solid, and all he could do was knock it over and continue on his way.

The battle was over a few minutes later when Solona appeared beside him, electricity streaming from both her outstretched hands, her eyes glowing and a scream of unadulterated rage escaping her throat. The last remaining darkspawn archers cooked in place, comically seizing as they all attempted to pull their swords and axes from their scabbards.

Then it was over, and suddenly Alistair was awash in their foul stench, mixing with the smell of the charred flesh of the electrified ones and the smell of ozone from the electricity itself. Solona stood next to him, chest heaving as the glow disappeared from her eyes. Her shoulders sagged, and an instant later he was moving to catch her as her energy seemed to leave her.

"Thanks," she breathed, leaning against him as she caught her breath.

"No problem." His heartbeat was slowing, and he took this opportunity to examine the battlefield.

It was a scene of gore. Blood stained the ground, soaking into the grass and dirt. Several corpses were beheaded – likely Sten's work – and several others had wounds that could only be caused by teeth shredding at flesh.

His companions appeared to have gotten through the skirmish largely unscathed, though, and he considered all their enemies dead and all his companions alive to be a dramatic improvement over the last time he and Solona had faced the creatures, at Ostagar. He watched as Wynne approached Sten, murmuring her spell of healing, blue light seeping into a wound on his arm. Max came to them nose-first, his muzzle dripping dark darkspawn blood, and pushed his head into Solona's hip with a slight whine. Leliana and Zevran both wiped their weapons off on the clothing of their last foes and sheathed them, bantering back and forth lightly as they began searching the corpses for salvageable arrows, and anything else that might serve them. Alistair could see the fear in Leliana's eyes even as she laughed at some quip from the elf, though, and he didn't blame her – the things were terrifying to behold the first few times. He admired her ability to handle the corpses despite her fear.

"Does it always feel like that?" He returned his attention to his fellow warden.

"Hmm?"

"The darkspawn," she clarified, pushing herself away from him and stooping to retrieve the staff she had flung to the ground before her last spell. "The connection. It was like a pressure along my skull, a tingling, like fingers dancing over the bone."

"That… is an incredibly articulate description of the feeling," he answered, her very words bringing an echo of that feeling. "And yes, it does. The more there are, the more fingers on your skull, and the faster they tickle. Ostagar was like knives."

"I was so… angry," she said, looking down at her hands after stowing her staff. "I wanted to obliterate them. They are so  _wrong_." She looked up at him. "Is that normal?"

He could only nod. The first time fighting darkspawn after the taint in their blood had had time to settle always terrified and angered a recruit. Solona hadn't been far enough from her Joining at Ostagar, she hadn't felt these things yet.

"Come on," he said, sheathing his sword and unbuckling his shield. "Let's go get the cart and get moving. This stench might make me pass out."

They had walked for hours after the skirmish with the darkspawn, finally coming to a stop a little earlier than usual. Solona drew first watch with Leliana, and they now sat, side-by-side, Max stretched out at their feet, backs to the fire some fifteen feet away. Solona cast a glance toward the redhead.

"Are you okay, Leliana?"

Leliana's eyes, which had been staring unfocused toward the sky, came to rest on Solona's face. She offered a small smile, tilting her head thoughtfully. "I am fine, Solona. I was just thinking about earlier."

"So you're okay with the fact that we met our first darkspawn? With what that means?"

Leliana's brow furrowed slightly. "What  _what_  means?"

Solona sighed. She'd hoped Leliana had come to this conclusion on her own. "If the darkspawn are venturing north, it means the villages to the south have likely been overrun. Lothering and the dozens of other villages like it are likely burned to the ground."

"Yes, actually, I knew that. That is what I was thinking about. Hoping they were able to evacuate in time."

"Oh. Well…"

Leliana took her hand, pulling her attention back to the bard's shining blue eyes. "Do you know where Leandra went?"

Solona hung her head. "No, I don't know. I didn't think to ask her where she might go before I left. Perhaps Kirkwall, although from what I know, she is not welcome there. Still, it is where she has people to go to."

Leliana squeezed her hand, laying her head on the mage's shoulder softly. "I am sure they are alright." Her voice was soft, gentle, almost like she was singing.

Solona moved her arm, wrapping it around the bard. "Me, too. I hope Damian and Carver made it home before they left."

"I never did meet them, did you know that?"

Solona shook her head. "Though, I suppose that makes sense. You didn't meet Aunt Leandra until after I left town the first time, if I recall?" Leliana nodded. "Otherwise you and I would have met, as well." She grinned. “No way Damian would miss a pretty girl like you.”

Leliana giggled. "I sometimes wish I had gotten out more. I shut myself off in the cloister. It wasn't until I happened to meet Leandra that I even really ventured into town much. It's hard to believe it was almost three years, now…"

Solona sighed after a moment. "I do hope they're alright. I'll need to look them up once this is all over." After a moment, she dared to say something that had been lurking in the back of her mind, though only in a whisper. "I seem to be losing those close to me left and right."

Leliana snuggled closer. "What do you mean, dear one?"

"Aunt Leandra, Bethany and Carver and Damian. My parents, though I suppose that wasn't the Blight." She paused, looked off toward the trees. "Jowan."

"Did they decide what to do with him?"

"The dungeon until Arl Eamon wakes. It was the most Teagan could convince Isolde of." She sighed. "I know he tried to kill her husband, but he was my family in that place, Leliana. He was my best friend, my brother in all but blood. But how could he do it? He's screwed everything up since the day he decided he was too afraid of being made tranquil, completely proving them right in their justification for the ritual." She closed her eyes, picturing that day in the Tower, when she was recruited to be a Grey Warden. "He betrayed me, used me for the power I had in that place once I'd passed my Harrowing."

Leliana didn't say anything, just wrapped her arms around the mage's waist, holding on tight and just  _being there_. It was more than Solona could have asked for. She wasn't looking for answers – just comfort.

After a while, her mind was pleasantly blank, no longer thinking of the unpleasantness with Jowan, or her Aunt and cousins. That was when she noticed Leliana humming and perked up a little.

"Do you still sing, Leliana?"

The bard just giggled. "Of course, silly!" She looked up, smiling. "Would you like me to sing to you?"

Solona colored, though she highly doubted it could be seen in the dark, even by someone as astute as Leliana. "I would love to hear you sing," she murmured, looking away.

Leliana caught the mage's face, turning her so they faced one another. "I do not mind, Solona. In fact, I quite miss making music. Is there anything you would like to hear?"

Solona thought for a moment. "There was a song one of the elder mages used to sing to us when she would put us to sleep. I never heard it again after she died." She paused, searching her memory. "If I recall correctly, it was about an enchanted sword, gifted to a woman. I don't really remember all the details, but in the end  _she_  took up the sword, made her own destiny."

"Ah, yes. I know it." Those blue eyes twinkled. "That you heard it so young explains your rebellious streak Wynne has spoken of."

"Hey!" Solona narrowed her eyes indignantly, but failed to hold the irritated expression for more than a moment or two. She grinned brightly, hugging the bard to her more closely. "I suppose I was a bit of a hell raiser at the Tower."

"A bit? Wynne told me a story about how you set Irving's robes on fire the first day you began instruction!"

Solona snorted, then sighed wistfully. "Yes, I remember that. He was very… patient with me, after that. I suppose you learn not to push someone too hard who is prone to do that when they're still so young and have no control."

"Well," Leliana said, pushing back from the mage and settling cross-legged upon the ground, facing her. She reached her hand forward, closing Solona's eyes. "Close your eyes, and listen,  _mon petit chou-chou_."

Solona's eyes snapped open. "Did you just call me your little cabbage?"

Leliana giggled. "Yes! It is a term of endearment in Orlais – don't be so indignant."

Solona frowned slightly. "If anyone's little, it's  _you_ ," she pouted, closing her eyes again at the bard's urging.

"Hush, and listen, or I shall have to punish you for acting like a petulant child."

She opened her mouth to make some quip about punishment, but the bard swallowed whatever it would have been with a kiss. Her hand fell over Solona's lips as she parted from her, and then the night was filled with a beautiful melody.

Leliana spun a tale of a Lady given a great gift by a powerful sorceress: a sword that never dulled, never needed to be cleaned, and that took on the strongest traits of those things it came into contact with. She was to give it to her true love, which would be the most powerful knight to cross her path. Time passed, and she did not find her true love. Noble young men came, strong men who could fell any beast, but she did not love them, and so kept the sword, awaiting her true love.

More time passed, and one day an impatient suitor attacked her, trying to take what she would not freely give. She took up the sword and slayed him, and decided she was tired of waiting, could be her  _own_  powerful knight. She took the knight's horse and the sword and rode for days until she came to the hut in the woods belonging to the sorceress. She declared that the sword would be hers, and confessed her love for the sorceress, and the two lived there, the young woman defending them against those who coveted the sorceress's power, for the rest of time.

Leliana's voice was quiet so as not to wake any of their companions, but full and rich. The melody was simple, repetitive, and yet the bard was able to make each stanza anew, her tone changing subtly to convey the changing emotions in the tale. Solona found herself eagerly anticipating the next stanza, to see how Leliana would frame it the next time she repeated the melody.

Max pushed his head into her lap, and she smiled, scratching behind his ear as she listened to the lilting purr of the Orlesian's voice. After a time, Leliana grew quiet, and when Solona opened her eyes once more, she realized that, in her mind's eye, she had been sitting on her old bed. She was almost surprised when she found she was sitting on the ground, in a clearing in the woods, a fire crackling behind her and a supremely beautiful woman sitting next to her, smiling at her, blue eyes twinkling like the stars overhead.

"Welcome back."

Solona smiled, reaching out and guiding the bard into her lap, cuddling her close. "Thank you. That was… beyond lovely."

"Oh, you are welcome, my warden. It is no trouble – a bard will take any excuse to sing and tell stories, you know." Leliana kissed her cheek, then her neck, trailing light little kisses down to Solona's shoulder before leaning her head there.

"Yes, but you haven't sung for anyone else here. I take that as a compliment."

She was quiet for a moment, simply cradling the woman in her lap, letting her mind wander. It came to rest on the tale, and something occurred to her. "Leliana?"

"Mmm?"

"The end of the story. I don't remember it ending in… lady love."

Leliana giggled. "That is because you are Ferelden. The tale is an Orlesian one, and in Orlais, it is much more common for women to love women and men to love men. It is not foreign here, of course, but mothers hardly sing of it to their children."

Solona frowned. "Are you saying I was taught an altered version?"

Leliana giggled softly. "Yes, dear one, though your nurse may not have known of the switch."

"Huh. I kind of wish it hadn't been censored so. It might not have taken me so long to realize why I was so uninterested in romance."

"There were no young people in the Tower who caught your eye?"

Solona shook her head. "No. I never even noticed Cullen ogling and fawning over me; though looking back, he could hardly have been more obvious. No, I didn't realize until I met my cousins."

"Oh?"

Solona smiled. "Yes. Damian is… well, like me. She was home on leave, and would take me out drinking at the tavern. She had a sweetheart in town, a sister to one of the barmaids, though I don't think they were very serious. True to each other whenever Damian was home, but not exclusive when she was gone. Anyway, I caught them kissing maybe a week after I arrived, before I knew they were together. I thought they were just friends."

"Oh, my! How did you react?"

Solona snorted. "I just stood there like an idiot. I had no idea what to say, or what to do. I'd never heard of anything like it."

Leliana giggled. "I would pay to see that – I bet you were adorable! I hope she took pity on you?"

"Yes, she did. We took a  _very_  long walk home through the woods and talked. The next night she introduced me to her sweetheart's older sister, who worked at the tavern, and who  _had_  heard of such things. She, uh… well, I suppose  _she's_  the one who took the most pity on me, because I certainly had no idea how to woo a woman."

"She bedded you?"

Solona's face flushed hot, and she nodded. Leliana giggled once more, taking the mage's face in her hands and kissing her forehead.

"I hope it was good?"

Solona grinned sheepishly, nodding once more. "One more reason I was displeased to go back to the Circle – no one else there seemed to have heard of it, either. If they had, they certainly weren’t letting on."

She fell silent for a time, enjoying the feeling of Leliana's head on her shoulder, the bard's arms tucked between them.

On a whim, she wrapped her arms tightly around the bard, a grin already on her face as she rolled them over, coming to rest on top of the redhead. She was rewarded with a squawk of surprise before the legs that had been straddling her lap wrapped around her hips, pulling her closer. Their lips met, a hot tongue seeking entry into her mouth almost immediately, the hands that had been folded neatly between them now seeking out her breasts through her shirt, circling gently around already-hard nipples.

She groaned softly at the feeling, began to grind into the other woman with her hips, her hands gripping the bard’s hips in a death grip. Their lips broke apart, and Solona took the opportunity presented by Leliana's exposed throat, nipping and kissing her way to the pulse point before latching on. Leliana let out a sweet sound, a whimper that only served to stoke the fire in Solona's blood.

But then the familiar warning alarm in her head started sounding, and she pulled it back, toning down her ardor. She never wanted Leliana to feel pressured, never again wanted their time together to, in any way, remind her of her time in captivity in Orlais. Within a few minutes, she simply rested gently on top of the bard, her face pushed into Leliana's neck, breathing in the sweet scent there, her hands resting under the small of Leliana's back. Leliana gently stroked her fingers through Solona's short hair.

"I would like to show you something, my warden," the bard breathed into her ear, and then a pressure on her shoulders had her sitting up, helping Leliana up, as well. As soon as they were both on their knees, Leliana was turning, her arms up over her head and pulling on her shirt. Solona's heart hammered in her chest immediately, her head swirling with confusion and the last dregs of her earlier lust.

Both settled with startling clarity at what was revealed to her, however. White lines that shone like silver in the moonlight greeted her. Getting closer, Solona saw that some were raised, thick like rope and partially wrapped around her ribs. Others were long and thin, like a knife had sliced her skin. Still others were in odd patterns, dots of scar tissue clustered in groups over very sensitive places, like the small of her back, or the skin over her lowest ribs. The mage could see that they disappeared down below the line of her trousers, up under her bunched-up shirt on her shoulders. She couldn't imagine the pain, the terror, of receiving those, day after day, week after week, stretching into months, and still holding onto the fact that you were innocent of the crimes they punished you for.

* * *

Leliana trembled, holding her shirt high on her shoulders, her back and stomach exposed to the night air. She had been contemplating this for weeks, but had decided on a whim when Solona yet again scaled back her passion, respecting Leliana's need to set the pace. The sudden need for Solona to understand pounded within her, and before she could think better of it, she had pushed the mage off of her and bared her skin – and along with it her past, her shame – to the first person aside from Mother Dorothea who would see it.

It wasn't until her shirt was up and she was waiting with bated breath, listening to Solona's sharp intake of breath, that the doubt hit her. The image of Solona rejecting her, telling her that she simply couldn't be with such damaged goods, entered her mind, and she shuddered at the thought. She trusted the mage, more than she had trusted anyone since Marjolaine, but she had seen her own disfigurement. She knew what she looked like under her clothes, and it shamed her.

It was a reminder of how truly naïve she had been, to trust someone who had been a bard her entire life. The scars were so  _ugly_ , inflicted in such a way as to last, even with healing ointments and oils, because they were inflicted over the course of  _months_ , never allowed to heal all the way before more of her flesh was marked.

But she had already done it, and there was no going back, no undoing what she had done. So she sat there on her knees, her back bared to the air, trying not to shiver, trying desperately not to be sick and lose her supper all over the grass.

It felt as though she sat like that for hours, but it was probably less than a minute – probably less than  _half_  a minute. Just as she was thinking that she should drop her tunic and get up, hands grasped her shoulders roughly, shocking her into releasing her tunic as she was half-spun. Then she was in Solona's arms, wrapped in a fiercely protective hug. She could only guess what the mage was thinking, but it was clear that this was not a rejection, and so Leliana hugged her back just as tightly, gripping the back of her tunic with both hands like it was the only thing keeping her on the ground.

Her voice came out muffled by the mage's shirt. "I wanted you to see. I am a vain woman, have tried to hide it from you. But I want to be close to you; you are so good to me, and I want to get past this… fear. They did this to me because I was a vain woman, knew that even if I confessed and they let me go, I would never again be able to practice my arts, to be with another person. They knew I would feel ashamed by the disfigurement. Marjolaine took care I would never be able to again trust another, and the chevaliers took care that I would never let another see me. They tried to make me invisible, worthless." Her voice dropped; she was barely able to choke out a whisper now. "I cannot let them win. You make me not want to let them win."

Solona didn't say a word, letting her silence show her acceptance, just holding Leliana close until it was time for them to wake their replacements.

* * *

Wynne was tired. Tired down to her bones, which ached with the coming storm. She had just warned the wardens about its approach, Alistair nodding that they would keep on the lookout for somewhere to take shelter until it was over. It wasn't that they couldn't keep walking in the rain, but Wynne's aches only came with severe weather, the kind it was better to shelter from than to try to slog through. Despite the season being on the cusp of summer, this was likely to be a very cold storm – the last cold front of the season – and they were likely to get hail in addition to the thunder and lightning, and it was just safer not to be out in that while several of their party members were wrapped in metal suits of armor. She hoped they found a place soon. As it was, she would need more than one cup of wine to be able to sleep this night.

Good thing the bann had seen fit to resupply their alcohol as well as everything else. It would be needed for more reasons than bad weather, too – they had run into three groups of darkspawn in the week since they had left Redcliffe, including one earlier that day, and anyone would need a strong drink after an encounter with  _those_.

"My dear Wynne, you look positively radiant today." Her eyes slid sideways to find that Zevran had silently sidled up alongside her.

"You look absolutely blissful yourself, Zevran." Her tone was wary. Their time together in Redcliffe, while the others were freeing the castle, had been full of flirting and feverish attempts at seduction on his part. She had written it off then as a side effect of his grievous wounds, but it had not let up, and so she was now suspicious anytime he chose to speak with her. His fascination with her breasts was… unsettling.

"You have not asked me about my conscience for some time, my darling Wynne."

She rolled her eyes. "That is correct. And I am not your 'darling.'"

He sighed dramatically. "So once again I am rejected, just as I am by the cruel, cruel fates. They are harsh mistresses to the elves."

Wynne groaned exasperatedly. "Zevran, I am old enough to be your grandmother!"

He just winked at her. "You say that like it is a bad thing."

A new tactic was in order. "And what would you do with me if you had me, hmm? This is a game you play, nothing more."

Zevran clucked his tongue at her. "Ah, you are a cynical woman, Wynne." Then he grinned. "Cynical and powerful. It drives me mad with desire."

His voice dripped sex appeal; Wynne was unaccustomed to anyone speaking with her thusly. When she would seek out comfort from her fellow mages in the Circle – always furtively, and always with herbs available to prevent pregnancy: she would not make the same mistake again – she was always direct. There was no room to have flirtatious behavior blossom into something more, otherwise their minders would see it and quash the romance before it happened. Being direct in a time of need with a good friend was always the better course of action. She had learned her lesson well when she wasn't allowed to meet her son.

But it left her utterly unaccustomed to Zevran's advances, whether or not they were meant in jest. So she just stared at him, hoping her authority as his elder would come through and make his gaze waver. It did not. He just continued to smirk, holding her gaze with his own.

Finally, she sighed. "I'm going to walk away now." And she did. She lengthened her stride, refusing to look at him, falling in line with Leliana, who was walking alone for once.

"Hello, Wynne," the girl said. _Woman, not girl. Oh, but when you're old, everyone seems a child. But Leliana is not a child. She is somewhere around twenty-five years, perhaps? Certainly, she has been old enough for some time now to have been a mother. She is no child._

Wynne smiled. "Hello, Leliana."

"I couldn't help but overhear Zevran. He is persistent, I will give him that." Wynne couldn't help but notice the small smile on the young woman's lips.

She groaned. "I wish he would leave me alone. I am… unused to such lecherous attention. And I know it is only in jest, but it still makes me uncomfortable."

To the elder mage’s surprise, the redhead giggled. "Oh, I do not think it is in jest. He jests, yes, but I see how he looks at you. He is quite  _taken_  with you, ever since Redcliffe, I think."

Wynne just narrowed her eyes. "I highly doubt that. How could he be? I am old, far too old for him."

"But what if I am right?" Leliana countered, amusement still dancing in her eyes. "If I am right, what would you think? Would you desire to be with him?"

"I… of course not!" Really, the very thought of someone like herself, with him. He was so young, far too young to be spending his time with an old woman, whose bones ached because of the weather. And this was all if she ignored his morally reprehensible occupation. She latched on to that. "He is a murderer, an assassin who does not repent his ways. He is irreverent when we speak of it, has no qualms diverting me to talk of my  _bosom_  instead of the morality of his former life." 

Leliana's eyes became a little sad. "Can you really fault him? He knew no other life until now, Wynne. He wanted out, took the opportunity, but we cannot ignore the things we knew to be true for so long." She looked down to the ground in front of her. " _I_ assassinated people, in Orlais, for Marjolaine: for her love, her approval. I regret it, yes, but I had a very different upbringing from our elven assassin. He learned to kill or be killed from a very tender age. Surely we cannot fault him for his current view of the world?"

"I…" The senior enchanter fell quiet, thinking. Leliana was right, really. Wynne knew Zevran's story, had heard it while they recuperated together in Redcliffe's Chantry. She had felt pity for him then, and a quiet tenderness had grown for him in her heart, replacing the distrust she'd held for him when she first learned of how he had joined the party. This was  _why_  she was questioning him on the morality of his past – she felt she could help him see that murder was wrong, and that he could make up for the wrongdoing while traveling with the wardens. But perhaps…

"You are very wise, Leliana," she said with a wry grin. "Perhaps I should leave him be, stop trying to force the issue of his morality. I imagine his world has changed to an incredible degree in the last few months. Perhaps I can simply leave him be, and instead of trying to  _force_  a change in him."

Leliana smiled more deeply, the sad look leaving her features. "I am glad you see that, Wynne. And who knows? Perhaps love can yet spring between you two."

Wynne snorted. "I highly doubt that." She looked at her young friend. She had not spoken with  _her_  yet about her blossoming romance with the warden. Perhaps she should say something now?

"I imagine Solona spoke with you about our conversation?"

Leliana's smile disappeared. She looked ahead as she nodded. "Yes. I believe you were worried about her priorities?"

"Yes. I am worried that she will let you surpass her responsibilities as a Grey Warden, making you her top priority."

"Perhaps. But have you seen her do that thus far?"

Wynne's brow furrowed. "No…" How long had this been going on? She assumed Redcliffe was the start, but perhaps the two had been keeping it to themselves for some time? "How long have the two of you been an item?"

Leliana's lips turned up in a small smile. "Since the Circle, Wynne. The entirety of the time you and I have been acquainted."

Wynne was stunned. She'd had no idea. She must be showing her shock, because Leliana was giggling, and then she was outright laughing, and Wynne couldn't help but blush – blush! Her - blushing!

"I suppose I haven't seen her letting her responsibility slide…"

"I do not think you are wrong to worry," Leliana said after her laughter died down. "But I think… I think we can be good for each other. We both need to learn to trust again, Wynne. She has been betrayed by those closest to her too many times. It has taken months for her and Alistair to get to where they are."

"What about you, child? You have been betrayed, as well. I cannot imagine it has not affected you."

Now Leliana blushed, making Wynne very curious. "It has," the redhead said, looking away for a moment. "I have not been… intimate with anyone in a very long time."

"You mean you and Solona have not…?"

Leliana nodded. "Poor Solona has had to deal with my demons right alongside me. We are taking things very slowly, getting to know each other as well as we can before… well. I'm sure you don't need to hear the details. Suffice it to say that this is not an insignificant encounter. We are learning from each other, and I believe we can help each other. Now, if you will excuse me, I think I may attempt to hunt – if we are to be idle tomorrow, it would be nice to have a hardier meal. Plus, then I can look for shelter from the storm off the main road, yes?"

Wynne was silent until they stopped for the evening. Leliana had given her much to think on.

* * *

"Do you realize that you've been smiling for hours now?"

Solona looked up to Morrigan, who had been walking silently beside her for some time. "Oh? Have I?" She  _had_  been staring at Leliana's backside ahead of her, so she supposed it was probably true. That sight tended to put her in a good mood.

"Yes, since the last time you and that  _girl_  shot glances at each other in fact." Morrigan was quiet a moment, then clucked her tongue impatiently. "I honestly cannot imagine what you begin to see in her, Solona. I hope at least the  _dalliance_  is worthwhile?" Her tone was acerbic, threatening to offend with every word, every change in pitch.

Solona was accustomed to it, though. And even though Morrigan was speaking of sex, and they had not yet  _had_  sex, the warden answered with a grin. "Oh, you have  _no_  idea." Better that than to rise to her bait.

Morrigan let out a bark of laughter, answering in an amused tone. "I see! Well, glad to hear it then." Her amused tone left her, however, as she continued. "'Tis a bit  _sickening_  to watch you two, but I imagine it at least takes your mind from our situation." She gestured with her hand in a manner very unlike her. "Have it your way."

Solona snorted. "Calm down, Morrigan. Or are you jealous?"

"Jealous?! The very thought is absurd! I desire neither of you for my own."

Solona rolled her eyes, cursing silently as her boot squelched out of a deep bit of mud on the road. The storm had raged the entire day before, thundering and flashing lightning most of the day, leaving great puddles of mud and water just  _waiting_  for their cart to get stuck in. And her boot, apparently. They had played it safe and taken shelter in a cave they had managed to find off the main road.

"Right, whatever. How are you adjusting to the new clothing?"

Morrigan glanced down at her form for a moment, looking back up and ahead of them before answering. "It is serviceable. I appreciate that you went to the trouble of finding it for me before we left, even though I did have a spare set of robes."

"One needs more than a single set of clothing. Besides, it was the least I could do, given that I left a smoking hole in your favorite shirt."

"I do not see why you continue to blame yourself for that. You were only acting in self-defense, against one of my more powerful spells. You  _should_  have retaliated in a way that would damage me." 

Solona sighed. "And I maintain that if I'm going to be sparring with anyone while channeling that energy, I need to learn enough control to not hurt them more than a blunted weapon would. Control is essential to wielding our power effectively. I would think you would know that –  _your_  degree of control is astounding." 

Morrigan narrowed her eyes. "I suppose you are right, about  _that_ , at least. Control is important. But the guilt you feel is misguided. You should stop letting it control you."

"Perhaps," Solona answered, thoughtful. "But perhaps guilt can be a good thing. It can lead us to learn lessons from past mistakes, can't it?"

"Or perhaps you are still yet a product of the Circle," Morrigan supplied, not succeeding in keeping the contempt out of her voice. "Perhaps their guilt is so deeply ingrained that any time you use magic, you feel like a misbehaving child for it?"

Solona frowned. "I think perhaps you hate the Circle more than I do, Morrigan. It is a cage, yes, but I learned more there than I ever would have had I stayed with my poor, ill-educated parents. And Wynne has a good point when she talks about the way the people who took care of her treated her once magic came to her. It may leash us, but the Tower also provided a place of understanding, a place of education that is unavailable to most outside of it."

"Her preference for the leash she wears disgusts me. And  _you_  are coming dangerously close to sounding like  _her_."

"Morrigan, we've had these arguments before. I agree that the Circle keeps us chained, that the Chantry works to keep the populace ignorant. If they had never made the common person ignorant, then life outside the Circle would be better for young mages. But as it was, the Circle was unfortunately the best option for me, in my situation. I plan to work to make things different from now on, however. And right now, the best way to do that is to defeat the Blight and restore the Grey Wardens here in Ferelden."

"But you do not even know  _how_  a Grey Warden kills an arch demon! I am confident my mother's grimoire will have that information, Solona, and yet you do not wish to go kill her so that you may have it!"

Solona shot a glare at Morrigan. The witch had told her all about what she’d found in that grimmoire.  It was horrid, and Solona had agreed to _eventually_ find Flemeth and kill her.

But she could not do so successfully yet. 

"I do not refuse to do this thing for you. I have already agreed. But we must complete this errand first. And I need more time if I am to defeat your mother. I might be an arcane warrior, but she has centuries of magical prowess over me, and a demon inside of her. I cannot hope to defeat her now, and you know that. Why do you push me to my death?"

Morrigan actually looked guilty for a moment. "I… I do not. I simply did not understand your hesitation."

"Well, now you do. Can we agree that I need more time to get my power under control if I am to survive an encounter with Flemeth?"

Morrigan nodded. "Yes, that makes a great deal of sense."

And that was as close to an apology as she was going to get, because Morrigan then walked away from her, pulling the fake grimmoire from the bag on her hip and reading as she walked, somehow, miraculously, missing all the mud as she went.

* * *

"The way you look at her so intently, so  _hungrily_ … one would think you have never seen a woman before."

Somehow, Leliana found herself walking next to Morrigan. It was her least favorite place to be because of Morrigan's scalding tongue. And now, it appeared she would be chiming in with her opinion on Leliana's relationship with Solona, among all the other things she complained about.

Leliana scowled a little. "Since when has where I look been your concern, Morrigan?"

Morrigan continued as though Leliana had not spoken. "It is almost as though you wish she would feel your gaze upon her, and notice you."

"Perhaps… or perhaps I stare because she makes me happy?"

"But what does she see in you? A girl, skinny like a boy, with wild, ragged hair."

That wasn't fair. Leliana wasn't _quite_ the voluptuous picture of womanhood that Morrigan was, but she certainly had assets to be proud of, hips and breasts that could be shown off. And her backside had always been the delight of her partners. Now if she could ever get over this crippling fear of showing her skin again…

Refusing to follow that line of thought to its inevitable conclusion, Leliana retorted with a little more bite than usual. "What is your point, Morrigan? That I am not attractive?" Perhaps the cat had not been  _completely_  declawed. "I do not need to make disparaging remarks about other women to make myself feel better. I know who I am."

She paused, looking askance at the witch, her eyebrows furrowing as a thought occurred to her. "You say that I am the one who tries to be noticed, but it is you." She was suddenly sure of her conclusions. "He does not notice your advances, the way you look at him, does he?" She looked pointedly at Alistair, up ahead of the group, currently scrubbing a hand through his slightly sweaty hair. "I suggest you stop projecting how you are feeling on someone else.  _My_  advances have been met quite satisfactorily."

To say Morrigan reacted in anger would have been an understatement. Leliana could practically _feel_ the energy crackling, being called to the mage's disposal. The bard didn't give her the satisfaction, however, instead choosing to lengthen her stride, hurrying to join the relative safety of Solona’s side.

She heard Morrigan swear as she caught up to the warden, and smiled to herself. She would pay for that later, but for now, she would put that particular argument under her "wins" column.

* * *

Alistair groaned. He hated being Solona's punching bag, even as he agreed that she needed to practice as often as possible, especially now that they were running into pockets of darkspawn on the road. They all needed practice, really. And so they had taken to sparring as a group, knocking each other full of bruises and welts with heavy wooden practice weapons, the mages learning some measure of close-quartered self-defensive spells, all before going to sleep for the night.

Solona had it worst, in some ways. She was learning how to incorporate her magic into close-quarters combat. But as she was sparring with her companions, she could not use her magic in a lethal way, which took a great measure of control. And it was important that she learned melee fighting with and without the augmentation of magic, as some beings were immune to most magic. And until she had learned to control the well of energy to sustain her, she often ran the risk of passing out if she used too much of it in one go. The mages had all sorts of theories for why this was, but the most likely seemed to be that her body acted as a conduit, and if too much energy was allowed to flow through it at once, then when she shut off access, she drained her body of the energy that had been sustaining it.

It didn't help that control seemed to be an incredibly difficult thing to come by when Solona opened herself up to that energy. Which was somewhat ironic, given that when she had been casting without it, she almost had too much control, cast sometimes too slowly, didn't make her spells powerful enough. When she opened herself up, her eyes glowing and her spells flowing from her like it was the most natural thing for her to do, she got… Alistair didn't know how to describe it. It was like looking into a cat's eyes when it was playing with a mouse before it ate the rodent. It never failed to send a shiver down his spine.

His current opponent, Leliana, abandoned him on the ground, seeking out another foe. He watched as she settled on Morrigan, who had just finished knocking a trembling Zevran to the ground. He decided not to get up, wanting to watch these two powerful women go at it. And go at it they did. As each of his travel companions was knocked down by their adversary, they stayed down, until only Solona stood, now watching Leliana and Morrigan with a worried expression alongside everyone else on the ground – even Sten, who Solona had just started being able to best the night before.

The two tore into each other almost immediately, probably fueled by all the catty remarks they had been sharing over the last several weeks – almost two months, now that Alistair thought about it. Mostly it had been barbs that Morrigan threw at Leliana, but the bard was not without her weapons, and sometimes left the witch walking away from her without a word. That seemed to be Morrigan's strategy when she didn't have a comeback: simply leave without a word. It was infuriating to Alistair, and, apparently, given how viciously Leliana was fighting the witch, to the bard, as well.

Morrigan first sent a bolt of frozen air toward Leliana, who danced out of its way quite easily. Leliana countered without pause, launching herself at Morrigan, falling at the last moment to roll, with all of her momentum, into the witch's ankles. Morrigan fell to the ground, rolling out of the bard's way before a blunted dagger made out of a heavy wood could hit her. She was on her feet in seconds, casting another spell, sending a wave of invisible force at Leliana.

Leliana fell to her knees for a moment, a look of pure terror coming over her face. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, it was gone – Leliana had broken free of the nightmare – and she was on her feet and running before the next spell could hit her. Morrigan was crafting new magic when Leliana suddenly put on a quick burst of speed, outpacing Morrigan's incanting and delivering a punishing uppercut to Morrigan's chin with the heel of her hand. It stopped the mage in her tracks, halting the flow of magic and allowing Leliana the time to wheel around in a circle, bringing her booted foot around with her and connecting with Morrigan's face. The witch almost hit the ground, instead stumbling backward with a trickle of blood escaping her lip.

Leliana's triumph was short-lived, however, as she was hit in the face with the blunt end of Morrigan's long staff. Leliana, taken by surprise, hit the ground a moment later, and then it was just Morrigan left standing, panting as she wiped the blood from her face. She glared at the bard for a moment, then, for some reason Alistair could not comprehend, looked to him. She held his gaze for a short moment, and in that moment he felt like a fatted lamb being pranced in front of a very hungry wolf. It only lasted an instant, however, Morrigan abruptly turning on her heel and marching to her tent.

Solona was already at Leliana's side, using a healing spell Wynne had taught her to heal the cut to Leliana's forehead. She was finding that she couldn't channel her new source of energy into magic she had never learned to use, and so had begun instruction from both Wynne and Morrigan in new spells, new ways of crafting their inborn gift. It was apparently slow going, especially healing spells; from Alistair’s understanding, in order to heal anything more than skin-deep, the mage needed to have a thorough understanding of the complex human (or animal) anatomy, something that was difficult to learn without books or other examples. But she and Morrigan had at least mastered this much, which would allow them both to heal some of the most deadly wounds you could get from a blade: the kind that made you bleed to death.

Wynne was busy healing the nasty burn Morrigan had inflicted upon Zevran when she felled him, and Sten was examining Max for injuries. That left Alistaur with little to do but pick himself up off the ground.

"Alistair?"

"Hmm?" He turned to Solona.

"Can you help Leliana clean up around here?" They were both on their feet now, Leliana looking fine, aside from a furious expression and a faint bruising near her temple.

"Yeah, alright."

"Thanks." Solona's eyes narrowed. "I have to go have a little  _chat_  with Morrigan about the appropriate spells to use against a non-mage while  _sparring_. For the Maker's sake, what in the hell is wrong with her?!" She continued in that vein, to herself, as she marched over to give the witch a piece of her mind.

 Alistair watched her go, shaking his head a little. "I would  _not_  want to be on the receiving end of that, especially with you involved."

Leliana made a frustrated sound. "She is being over-protective. I do not need her to do this."

Alistair turned to her, a puzzled expression on his face. "But, how could she not? She obviously cares about you. That's what you do for the people you care about, isn't it? You protect them."

"I do not need her to coddle me. I can defend myself just fine."

"I don't think that's under debate, Leliana. I think she just doesn't like the idea of Morrigan casting nightmares into your mind. You save that kind of nasty work for your actual enemies." He stooped to pick up a practice dagger she'd dropped, finding nothing else that needed tidying. Clearly, Solona had merely not wanted either of them following her. "She hardly coddles you; she never gets in your way when you're fighting someone else, and as far as I can tell, when the two of you spar, you almost get more ferocious with each other than with anyone else. I agree with her on this – Morrigan was out of line. The spells she was using were the equivalent of you going at her with razor-sharp, poisoned blades. You do not do that when sparring with your companions."

"Perhaps…" She took the weapon from him with a murmur of thanks, moving to her tent to rid herself of her armor. He sighed, shaking his head and smiling ruefully to himself.  _I really am terrible when it comes to women_.


	15. Denerim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut warning! Hope you enjoy!

Leliana woke to an empty tent. She hummed to herself as she pulled on her clothing, wondering what she and Solona would do with the two days they would be here, alone. Well, she knew what she  _planned_  to do, and thought it likely that it would happen, but still – it was unlikely they would spend the entire two days bedding each other. Though, with that legendary Grey Warden stamina…

She exited the tent before she could follow that line of thought to its only reasonable conclusion, only to emerge to a completely tidy – and empty – camp. Everyone's tents were set up, the fire dying down to coals, logs set up around the fire; it was all there, except for her companions. Well, that wasn't true. Max was there, getting up from his position near the fire and stretching before walking lazily over to greet her.

"Hello, boy," she greeted, falling to a knee and grabbing his big head with both hands. "Where is everyone?"

He immediately stood from his seated position and chuffed happily, turning and walking off to where the trees were thicker. She got up and followed him curiously, wondering where he was taking her.

She didn't have to wonder for long. When the stream was in sight, he chuffed at her, then started back the way they had come. Looking back, she could see the tents were just barely visible through the trees. She hadn't realized how close they had settled to the water the night before, too busy preparing dinner and falling into an exhausted sleep was she.

A faint humming caught her attention, coming from the direction of the water. A few seconds of listening assured her that it was Solona's voice, and so, with a smile on her face, she crept silently to the water's edge.

The sight that greeted her immediately had her heart pounding in her chest. Solona stood naked in the middle of the stream, her back to the bard. Leliana could see muscles bunching as the mage ran a sponge over her arms, her whole body then stretching as she reached for the awkward places on her back. She looked very different from the first time Leliana had seen her all those weeks ago, when she had undressed the mage after Zevran's ambush. Then, she had been of average build, soft with only a hint of muscle underneath. That was no longer true. The months of travel since she left the Circle, combined with sparring every night, had left Solona almost chiseled in comparison.

The water only reached the mage's hips, meaning Leliana could see the entire expanse of the woman's back: the long curve of her spine, disappearing into the water just as it became the swell of her backside; the soft skin and hard muscles of her shoulders; the gentle curve as hips turned to waist, waist to ribs. Solona's shifting revealed the barest hint of a breast, a nipple and the gentle curving underneath it, as she splashed water up to rinse herself, and Leliana decided that now was the time.

Before she could think better of it, she began to divest herself of her clothing. She did not try to muffle the sound, and within a few seconds Solona had turned, alarm in her eyes until she saw that it was Leliana. When she realized what Leliana was doing, she tensed for a very different reason.

Leliana just stared unabashedly, taking in the sight before her as she unlaced her boots, drew her shirt over her head, let her trews fall to the ground. She drank in the sight of Solona's body, barely able to spare the small amount of concentration necessary to rid herself of her smallclothes, of the cloth that bound her breasts in place.

The mage was simply exquisite. Her dark skin puckered with the cold of the water, glistening in a way that made Leliana want to kiss every inch of it. Her breasts, small in comparison to the rest of her, were nevertheless inviting: perfectly round mounds, settled with their own weight, erect nipples pointing directly at the bard. Her shoulders were somewhat broad for a woman, though not unnaturally so, and from here, Leliana could see that all the sparring had left the mage with hard abdominal muscles, her hip bones chiseled in a way that practically begged for Leliana's tongue to trace them. A tiny line of black hair disappeared into the water, promising a dark thatch of curls over the mage's sex.

She could simply not take her eyes from the sight before her.

Another tug and she was free of all her clothing, gliding into the water as she held the mage's gaze. Neither said a word, simply staring at each other until Leliana stood so close that she had to look up to see the mage's eyes. She shivered a little at the cold of the water, feeling goose bumps starting to creep up her sides, whether from cold or from arousal she could not honestly say.

Her body was already so keyed up in anticipation, she felt as though she were on fire.

Then, the silence was broken. "Good morning," Solona crooned, her eyes heavily hooded as she looked down at the bard with a faint smile on her lips.

Leliana grinned. "Kiss me." She hadn't meant to say that. She'd meant to answer in kind, playing the little game of pretending this was all terribly normal. But clearly her body had usurped her brain, and then Solona's hands her sliding from her ribs down under the water to her hips, pulling the bard close as she leaned her face forward to meet Leliana's.

Leliana almost cried out when the mage's warm skin pressed against hers. Those long, strong arms circled her waist, pulling them together as her own hands reached up, her fingers twining into the mage's hair, nails gently raking the scalp. Their skin sliding together felt like rubbing against warm silk, only more sensual, as this was  _Solona_ , and not an inanimate piece of cloth. The interesting play between the mage's hot skin and the cold water was threatening to overpower her senses.

The kiss was what grounded her. Solona's lips were warm, and Leliana delighted in the now-familiar faint taste of tea and honey that was the mage's perpetual flavor. She twined her tongue with Solona's, letting the mage rock very slowly, not missing that she was working her way down, to be on a more even level with the bard. It made her smile, and she could feel the mage's answering smile through the curve of her lips.

Leliana pulled away, grinning at Solona, finding the same hunger she felt mirrored in the taller woman's eyes.

Solona gasped as Leliana trailed hot, wet kisses from her lips to her jaw and up toward her ear. When she reached that spot, she started nibbling on the lobe, causing Solon's knees to go weak. She could do nothing more than give Leliana access to those sensitive places and allow her own hands to roam.

And roam they did. She traced her fingers along the smooth, alabaster skin, refusing to back away from the silver scars she felt under her fingertips. Up along ribs, down onto thighs, back up to cup the two perfect globes of her rump, and further up still to circle two deliciously erect nipples. Her skin felt simultaneously too hot, and prickled with goose bumps from the cold of the stream. Leliana's skin sliding along hers was just about the best feeling she'd ever felt in the world, and she never wanted it to stop.

But then Leliana was leading her toward some rocks that jutted out into the water. A gentle pressure sat the mage down on the edge of the lowest one, and then their faces were level. Leliana was standing between her legs, drawing them apart as her dexterous fingers played along the insides of Solona's thighs, her lips catching the mage's in another fierce kiss. Solona groaned as Leliana continued to play with sensitive skin, leaving Solona's mouth in favor of her throat. Hot kisses burned a trail down to her chest, that wicked tongue darting out to taste flesh as the bard went. Solona could do nothing but rake her nails through Leliana's hair and across her shoulders, moaning and groaning and gasping her exclamations as Leliana built her further and further up.

She practically bucked them both back out into the water when Leliana stopped circling Solona's nipple with her tongue, suddenly surrounding it with her hot, wet mouth.

"Maker, Leliana!"

A coy little giggle danced on the air, and then Leliana sucked sharply, making Solona cry out in pleasure, her nails digging into the skin of Leliana’s shoulders. Just when she thought nothing else could feel more exquisite, Leliana's hands abandoned Solona's thighs in favor of more intimate areas, and Solona was swearing to the Maker above for sweet mercy. A finger slicked itself with her arousal, finding its way through her slippery folds quite easily and pushing into her. Solona thought she might pass out, but was determined not to, to not miss this experience for anything in the world.

A second finger joined the first, and Solona suddenly knew why those who found men attractive would find sex with them to be satisfying: she'd never experienced this feeling of being  _full_  before. But that curling up that Leliana was employing was surely something the male member was incapable of? Solona cried out as Leliana did it again, wrapping her legs around the bard's hips as she gripped desperately at her shoulders, holding the bard to her as tightly as she could.

Leliana had moved her face back up to Solona's long before, immediately nipping and biting at her collarbone, her throat, her earlobe, surely leaving her mark wherever she touched. But Solona didn't care, didn't have a single thought to spare for what the others might say when they saw the bite marks upon her flesh. She could only gasp and moan, saying Leliana's name in a pleading tone, though not quite knowing what she was pleading for.

But Leliana knew. She grinned, purring to the mage in Orlesian, saying words Solona had never come across in her academic pursuits, and so could not understand – though she certainly got the gist. The bard worked her, pumping her fingers in and out, curling them just so, holding her tight about her middle with her free arm as the mage writhed; until, finally, her thumb ventured forth, finding that perfect bundle of nerves that sent Solona practically flying off the rock again. Solona was pretty sure that it was only her death grip on the bard that kept her rooted to the earth.

The Orlesian's tone seemed to have changed, seemed almost to urge her toward something, even though Solona still could not understand what the shorter woman said. But the same urgency, the same feeling of moving toward something, was happening inside of her, a molten heat quickly spreading from her belly all the way out to the tips of her fingers and toes. Suddenly, as her pleasure mounted, as her cries and pleas deteriorated into unintelligible syllables of need, the heat contracted, gathering in a tight ball in the very center of her, where Leliana's fingers played. Then, just as suddenly, it felt like the ball exploded outward, heat rushing forth, and Solona was falling off the edge of a cliff in her lover's arms, crying out with the exhilaration of the fall.

Leliana chuckled as Solona let her head fall, coming to rest on the bard's shoulder. She stilled her ministrations, letting her hand simply rest there between the mage's legs. She could feel Solona’s pulse beating a tattoo against her fingers, and it only served to stoke her own inner fire even further. Hopefully, Solona was not the type to fall asleep after lovemaking, like some people whose bed Leliana had shared.

"I take it that was the first one of  _those_  you've experienced?"

Solona nodded her answer, still breathing hard, pulse still racing against the fingers Leliana had embedded inside of her.

She purred further into Solona's ear, telling her how lovely she was, how beautiful, how good she looked, how delectable she tasted. A sudden thought came to her, and, after gently easing her trapped hand free – amidst whimpers and whines from the mage – she brought her coated fingers to her lips, sampling the taste of the most intimate part of her new lover.

Leliana heard a hiss as she closed her eyes, taking first one and then the other finger into her mouth. The slightly tangy taste was just as she remembered a woman tasted, and yet different, exhibiting some quality that was  _Solona_ , that no one else could produce. The taste sent a thrill through her, and when she opened her eyes – after completely cleaning off her fingers – she found Solona staring, eyes fixed with a hungry expression. The bard suddenly felt like a lamb being stared down by a wolf, and the feeling excited her more than she had ever thought it might.

In one move, Solona was on her feet, one arm swooping underneath Leliana's knees and lifting her above the water. She yelped, her arms immediately going around the taller woman's shoulders to steady herself. The mage left the water, walking with Leliana in her arms, moving slowly enough to make it clear that she was being careful despite her eagerness to get wherever she was going.

Speaking of which… "Where are we going, my warden," Leliana purred, letting her desperation, her lust, color her tone, watching as the mage shivered from the sound of her voice. She smiled to herself, glad that she had not lost her touch.

In answer, the mage began to lower her, and then Leliana could feel grass against her skin, and she was being laid down on the ground, the naked body of her lover pressing on top of her. Their lips met in a feverish clash, Solona's tongue pressing into her mouth, gentle but insistent, one hand making straight for Leliana's breast as the other held the majority of her weight to keep from crushing the smaller redhead.

Leliana had always been one to enjoy pleasuring her partner.  Especially women. When pleasuring a woman, you got to be in control, and for Leliana, it was usually someone larger than herself she could be in control of.  That Solona had never fallen off that particular cliff before only added to her racing heart and pounding blood.  It thrilled her to no end.

Which meant she was already there, felt as if she'd been there for weeks at this point, and really just needed the mage to be inside of her  _now_. So, as she guided Solona's head with one hand to be nibbling and kissing at her throat – _I never realized quite how much I would enjoy taking this role during lovemaking_ – Leliana used her other hand to take Solona's wrist and guide it down. The mage's fingers trailed over the expanse of her belly, tickling the few scars there, and down through her fiery red curls, damp with both water and her own arousal. The mage needed no guidance after that, latching on to the bard's pulse point with her mouth as she pressed until she was buried as far as she could go.

Leliana groaned, wrapping her arms around Solona’s shoulders, her legs around the mage's hips. No thoughts of past trauma came to her, too distracted by the delightful sensations of being filled up by the object of her desire.

But it wasn't quite enough.

"Another," she murmured, pleaded, and Solona pressed a second finger inside of her, needing no clarification for what the bard meant.

Maker! That was what Leliana was looking for! Solona pressed in and up in a fair imitation of Leliana's moves upon her, and it became clear to Leliana that the mage would only need a few rounds to know exactly how to work Leliana’s body until the bard was a shuddering and pleading  _mess_. The thought shot a thrill through the redhead, and she began to grind her hips against the hand that was inside of her in an insistent rhythm. She never enjoyed being a passive spectator during sex. Often her partners insisted. But Solona met her grinding with enthusiasm, setting Leliana’s blood pounding at a furious pace.

Solona began to drive her penetration of the bard with her hips, and Leliana completely lost the ability to think, instead simply grinding, crying out, and trying desperately to remember to breathe. It quickly became too much, and she was hovering on the edge of her own cliff. She was so desperately close that she acted without thinking, removing the hand that had been clutching a handful of Solona's white hair and snaking it down between their bodies to her center. She pressed a single finger to that magical bundle, and within seconds she was _flying_ off that cliff, bucking and gasping the whole way.

Awareness returned to her even as her body trembled with aftershocks. Sweaty skin sliding against her own, a hot mouth pressing kisses to her shoulder and collarbone, her sex still clenching rhythmically around the fingers that were pressed deep inside of her.

She chuckled, low in her throat, wrapping her arms around the mage's shoulders once more, hugging Solona to her fiercely.

"You," she said, licking her lips in an attempt to wet a mouth that had gone dry with her many cries, "are  _exquisite_."

Solona grinned, kissing her, wrapping her free arm around Leliana's waist, under the arch of the bard's back, stoking the coals back into inferno so quickly that Leliana almost yelped in surprise. Within minutes, they were making love once more, their skin dappled by the sunlight coming through the leaves overhead.

Alistair walked through Denerim with the world's worst companions, in his opinion. Sten rose up above him by a foot, his horns curving up and calling the attention of every person in the square. Qunari mercenaries – called Tal Vashoth by Sten – weren't unheard of in Ferelden, though it had been a little difficult to convince the giant to play that part if it came down to explaining their cover story of being part of a larger mercenary group. They had finally settled on him just remaining silent and trust that others would assume him a mercenary, something he was blessedly more willing to do.

The cover story allowed them to wear their weapons and armor, and to be seen going from stall to stall in the Market District, without looking guilty (or it helped Alistair, anyway). Finding Brother Genetivi's home was proving difficult, however – none of them had been to such a large city on their own before, and so had no idea how to navigate the seemingly random mish-mash of dwellings in the city.

Alistair had been educated in the Chantry here, but he had never really left its halls while he had lived here. Then he had been a templar initiate, training hard and building up his endurance _outside_ the city, and then a Grey Warden. Morrigan had grown up in a swamp, the largest settlement she'd ever visited being Lothering. Sten spoke of Qunari cities, but they were the exact opposite of what they found around them in Denerim, which was chaos and a great stench if not walking on the main street. They had an address, but it quickly became evident that it would not be enough for the three of them to figure out where they needed to go. He could only hope Wynne and Zevran had more luck.

In addition, Alistair was nervous for a different reason from his companions. He  _also_  had the last-known address of his sister, and he planned on trying to visit her while he was here, assuming he could ever get a feel for the city streets. He had never met her, didn't even know she existed until Arl Eamon had mentioned her on his last visit to see Alistair at the Chantry here in Denerim. To say he was nervous was a gross understatement.

Because of this, he thought maybe he shouldn't go alone, that maybe he should take someone with him. But the two people he'd be most comfortable taking, and who he felt would be least likely to think less of him for wanting to meet his sister, were not in the city, so his options were somewhat abysmal. He supposed he could ask Wynne, but it just didn't seem right to appeal to her sympathetic nature. Plus, he wasn't sure he could deal with her pity if things didn't go well.

He stopped at a stall selling ingredients for potions, allowing Morrigan to boss him around in what to buy. He was surprised when Sten had input as well, though he supposed Elfroot had healing properties whether or not you practiced magic, and anyone with the knowledge could make a poultice with the herb. He eventually stepped back and let them at it, paying once they were satisfied with their supplies.

It went like this all afternoon, he and Morrigan exchanging their usual barbs, though at a much lower volume from usual, given the press of people around them. All the people, pressing so close, was making the witch particularly prickly. Passersby continued to stare up at Sten, but Alistair noticed that it was really only a moment or two, just taking the opportunity to see a kossith up-close. All in all they did not draw too much attention to themselves. Thank the Maker Morrigan's newest addition of clothing covered her up a little better than the last, or Sten's bulk would be the least of their worries in terms of attention-grabbing companions.

Their last stop before heading to the tavern Zevran had told them they would be sleeping was the dwarven armorer, to replace the greatsword Sten had been using since his freedom was gained in Lothering. It had been a serviceable weapon, but it was not the best quality to start out with, and had only degenerated in the last two months – lopping off the heads of molten lava-beasts had done the steel no favors. Teagan had offered to replace it for him, but they had been unable to take the time to wait for a large enough weapon to be made for him, so they had left, hoping they could find a suitable replacement from the various armorers in Denerim with the gold Teagan had provided.

Sten chose his weapon immediately, picking a giant sword off the rack that the dwarven merchant declared his best, charging them more than Alistair would have liked to pay. But he understood the importance of a quality weapon – it was what stood between you and death when in battle. So he paid for the weapon without a single complaint, hoping the others would be willing to cough up when it came time to pay for room and board. He didn't know how  _his_  coin purse had become the default for paying for everyone else, but complaining seemed a little petty, since they were accompanying  _him_  in  _his_  duty to stop the Blight.

"Come on," he said finally, heading toward the water. "Let's go see if Zevran and Wynne have made it yet." The directions to their lodgings were so easy even Alistair could follow them: head to the water, then south until you find the nicest building you've seen along the water. That will be the Pearl.

They got to the Pearl just to learn it was the brothel Zevran had mentioned in Redcliffe. For some reason Alistair could not fathom they decided to stay, after a rather funny moment in which Sten asked them all what a brothel was.

Zevran had proceeded to pay, out of his own coin purse, for a night of entertainment for everyone, including the giant man who immediately attracted the attention of half a dozen women of various races. They sat around him and watched his muscles ripple under his armor as he ate the meal provided to them. Zevran was off somewhere, becoming acquainted with a couple of the elven women employed here. Alistair didn't have to think hard to figure out what they were likely doing, and it only deepened his seemingly permanent blush.

He sat drinking with Morrigan and Wynne, who were both keeping up with him drink for drink, despite his probably weighing twice as much as each of them. Wynne was disapproving of their choice of accommodations at first, but a hot meal and a little wine seemed to loosen her up, and now she seemed to be enjoying herself quite nicely. She even had the attention of an employee of the establishment, a man on the old side of young with an Orlesian accent who was getting a little too touchy for Alistair's tastes.

What was confusing the hell out of the warden was her reaction, though. She was actually  _enjoying_  the flirtatious behavior, the man’s whispers and murmurs in her ear bringing a healthy glow to her face and neck. Alistair was finding it harder and harder to not stare, impossible to reconcile the image of this old woman – really, not that old, not ancient or anything, but not young like the rest of his companions – flirting with a man so much younger than her. Or any man, come to think of it.

His jaw practically fell to the floor when the man quietly got up from the table, taking Wynne's hand in his own and leading her off to the hallway in the back. Wynne followed, a slight flush to her face, avoiding her companions' gazes. Morrigan, sitting next to a much quieter elven man, was led away not long after, catching Alistair's gaze for a moment. He couldn't be sure, but he would almost call that look in her eyes... defiance? Like she was daring him to say something. She was not being led by the hand – there was no tenderness between the two of them at all – but he could see the hunger as her eyes shifted back to the dark-haired elven man, turning to follow him into the hallway at the back of the common room.

Alistair’s attention was then called away from Morrigan by the woman who seemed to have taken a liking to him earlier in the evening. His gaze had made its way to her plenty of times, always drawing a smirk and a wink from her, eliciting a blush as he looked away again. Long blonde hair fell down her back, inevitably drawing his eyes to the creamy skin of her bared shoulders. She smiled at him, getting up off her stool, where she'd been speaking with the proprietress, and sauntering over to him, her hips swaying in a way that had him completely mesmerized by the time she got to where he was seated.

He swallowed, his mind curiously blank of any thoughts, and yet full of them at the same time. Or maybe just the one thought: what was he supposed to do? Wynne and Morrigan seemed to know what to do, why didn't he? He opened his mouth to say something, but could think of nothing to say, so he just shoved his mug of ale in his face, chugging the rest of it down. He didn't really know what he'd do once it was gone, but it had at least saved him in that moment.

The blonde woman chuckled, removing the mug from his lips just as he was wondering what to do with it, as it was now empty. Her fingers slipped into his hair, her nails trailing over his scalp, and a shiver ran down his spine. He watched, entranced, as her face, her pouting lips, got closer and closer to him, and then they were touching hot kisses to his jaw. She trailed down his throat, making his skin too hot, his armor too constricting, and sending shivers down his spine.

When she pulled back, she had his hands in hers and was pulling him to his feet. He got up dutifully, wordlessly following her for what felt like a million years, until he was in a small bedchamber.

Suddenly he wondered if he should be doing this. Shouldn't the first time be special, with someone you cared about? Wasn't it supposed to be about love and trust?

Not like he would have an opportunity for that any time soon. He was the last of two Grey Wardens in a country facing a Blight, and he'd barely been part of the Order for six months before Ostagar. He had hoped he might strike up a romance with Leliana for a time, but she had dashed those hopes quite thoroughly, though kindly. What chance would he have for romance, for the tender touch of someone dear to him? No, this might be his one chance to lose his virginity – he decided right then to take it, to enjoy it for what it was.

Almost as soon as the door was shut, she was removing his armor with sure fingers.

Somehow, he decided that blurting the first thing he could think was a good idea. "How do you know how to do that?"

She just snickered a little. "Plenty of soldiers and mercenaries come here. It's practically part of the trade, at this point."

As she found all the straps and buckles, he wondered if he should inform her of his virginity. Sure, he had taken himself in-hand, plenty of times – what boy didn't once they figured out the mechanics? But that did not mean he was not a virgin.

Was that something she had found herself relieving these soldiers of often? How would he compare to those other men? He knew one's size was a factor, though he'd also heard once that "how you used your tool was far more important than it's size," but since he had no skill to speak of, he could only hope he measured up in other ways. And what about her? Sure, he was paying her – well, Zevran was – but Alistair was not fool enough to think that women could not experience pleasure from sex, otherwise why in the Maker's name would they ever have it? In his opinion, men were not much to look at – the sight of a naked man certainly didn't make  _him_  want to rub up on them, as much as Zevran might want him to.

If anyone would be in touch enough to enjoy sex, it would be a prostitute.  _Perhaps she can teach me…_

His attention was called back as the last of his armor was freed from his body, leaving him standing before her in just cotton tunic and trousers. He felt a little stupid, didn't know what to do with his hands, or the rest of his body, for that matter. He stood there dumbly as she began to undress, hips swaying mesmerizingly as she back up slowly toward the bed, an incredibly seductive smile on her face.

When she lay back on the bedspread with not a stitch of clothing on, his arousal hit him, harder and more suddenly than he'd ever quite experienced before. He moved to her automatically, still unsure of what to do, but not caring quite too much anymore. The thought that this was happening, and that he lacked the good judgment – from all the alcohol – to stop it from happening, sent his blood pounding. He was powerless to stop it, allowing the woman to sit up and take his shirt, pulling it over his head.

Then her hands were on his stomach, his chest, her hot mouth following in their wake, and his inability to move was shattered. He surged forward, spilling them both on the bed as he sought her lips with his own. He was still rather awkward and fumbling, though, and so the woman rolled him over, quickly ridding him of the rest of his clothing.

“This is your first time, is it?” she asked, giggling a little as she pulled his trousers off his ankles.

“I… yes.  I’m… sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” she purred, snaking her hands up his thighs, his stomach, his chest.  “Just good to know what I’m working with,” she added, laying down on top of him and nearly causing his brain to explode.

Her skin felt amazing, like a fire on a cold day, or using a heated towel after bathing in a cold river, or maybe a hot bath after days of being out in the rain and muck. She glided over him like velvet, her mouth hot against his skin as she pressed her lips to his throat, his chest, his belly. And the skin under his hands felt like butter: smooth, soft, almost slippery under his fingertips. He longed to grab great handfuls of her, the absurd thought of taking a bite of her mouthwatering flesh occurring to him in a moment of complete ridiculousness.

She had a wicked tongue, its heat spilling over his throat, his collarbone, his… ear?  _Oh, Maker!_  She nibbled, ghosting hot breath over all the spots her wet tongue had touched. He almost didn't know what to do with himself when she took him in-hand. He never thought another would be touching him so, and the worry over how he compared to others suddenly returned. Did she find him pleasing? It was suddenly very important to him, even as she groaned and smiled into the skin of his throat.

He almost blurted out his worry, but then he was surrounded by her warm, wet mouth, enveloped in its silky heat, and he had no more thoughts to spare.

Solona traced her fingers along the scars on Leliana's shoulder. They had made love throughout the day, Solona a quick study in pleasing her bard. She'd learned how to use her fingers to find that most delightful of ridges, how to circle the bundle of nerves in just the right way to make the redhead _squeal_ , and now she even knew what the both of them tasted like. She liked it, and couldn't wait to try  _that_  particular trick again. And tasting herself on her lover's lips? Quite possibly the single most erotic thing she'd ever experienced in her life. Which admittedly was not saying much, as Solona’s sexual experience _before_ Leliana could barely fill a thimble.

Now, they lay together naked in the grass by the stream, under the partially cloudy sky, the sun lost just behind the canopy of trees. They had slept in between bouts of lovemaking, even taken a break long enough to choke down some bread and wine, a mouthful of water, before Solona had taken Leliana into her arms once more. She was finally, deliciously sated now, simply holding the smaller woman, her muscles pleasantly sore as she lay awash in memories of the day and the scent of her lover, of their lovemaking.

She had realized at some point in the day that she was absolutely in love with Leliana, and it made her heart soar. She didn't say anything, not yet, wanting to hold it in her hands and examine it when she had the chance. But just knowing was enough, for now. Just knowing that she could spend the rest of her life with the woman, after the Blight was over, fulfill her duties in peace with Leliana by her side, filled her entire chest with warmth. It didn't even matter at the moment if the bard felt the same.

Her musings were interrupted by a fat drop of water landing on her cheek. A moment later, Leliana yelped, her head coming up in surprise, her expression an adorable mixture of accusation and confusion. Another drop hit Solona's hip, and then all bets were off, and they were up and scrambling for clothes, food, the dog, as more and more drops fell. By the time they made it into their tent, laughing and shrieking, it was raining in earnest, and they were more wet than dry.

Finishing with toweling Max off, Solona turned to find Leliana watching her intently, a vaguely self-satisfied smile on her face. She raised a brow, grinning despite herself. "See something you like?"

Leliana just chuckled. "You are covered in raindrops."

Solona looked down at her skin, seeing that she was only slightly dryer than she had been after coming out of the stream. Looking back up, she shrugged, seeing that Leliana was similarly covered in drops of water, shivering slightly with the drop in temperature the evening had brought.

She grinned. "Well. I can think of something that would warm us up, maybe dry us off."

Leliana rolled her eyes. "You are insatiable!" But she reached for the mage, enfolding her in loving arms and warm, soft skin, reigniting the passion that had sustained them throughout the day.

Alistair awoke to an empty room. His armor and clothing lay neatly piled, cleaned for him overnight. He shuddered to think of someone coming while he lay bare-ass naked on the bed, but as it had already happened, there really wasn't anything he could do about it now. A basin of warmed water stood in the corner – that person really must have come in recently – so he took the opportunity to wash, letting thoughts of the night before wash over his mind as the sponge washed over his skin.

It was remarkable. He didn't even know how he might describe the experience in words. He just kept thinking that he wanted to do it again, putting the tricks she had taught him for pleasuring a woman to work as soon as possible. What would it be like with someone he really cared about, like Solona and Leliana cared for each other?

An image suddenly came to him, now that he had an idea of how it might work, of exactly what it was they were doing while the rest of his companions had been in the city. This was quickly followed by images his other companions with their chosen bedmates, and he felt his face flush incredibly hot. He suspected he was the only one of the lot who had been a virgin before last night, though. No one else would be breaking their fast with a blushing grin on their face. No, he should really try to keep this embarrassment, and the experience itself, to himself. It was his, no one else's, and he would hold that card – how it made him feel – close to his chest. The woman he had slept with might not even know how groundbreaking an experience it was for him, but that didn't matter. The fact remained that, in a small, possibly insignificant, way, he was a changed man.

Some might even say he hadn't been a man until now, even though he'd seen battle, killed darkspawn and bandits.

The idea that he'd killed before ever experiencing a woman's touch suddenly made him sad. The world worked in strange ways.

He emerged several minutes later clean, dressed, armed, and armored. He found all of his companions except Morrigan sitting at one of the tables in the common room, breaking their fast. Wynne and Zevran were bickering – well, that wasn't true. Zevran was once again trying to talk his way into the older woman's tent, and Wynne was steadfastly refusing. Sten just sat there quietly eating his weight in bacon and bread and washing it all down with a pitcher of fruit juice all to himself. Alistair wondered if the giant had partaken of any of his devotees, and what that must have been like for them – they were so small in comparison.

Morrigan appeared just as he was digging into his own meal, the young elven man she'd spent the night with following her out of the hallway and disappearing into the kitchen. Her yellow eyes immediately found his, the corners of her mouth twisting up just slightly. Alistair wasn't really sure how to read her expression. Nor did he know what the knot that materialized in his chest when Morrigan appeared meant. But suddenly he wasn't quite so hungry.


	16. Rest

"Do we really have to put clothing on?"

Leliana giggled. "Yes, silly. We cannot be walking around naked when the others arrive later. Besides, I don't know about you, but I would like to eat more than a few bites of bread this day."

Solona got a guilty look. "Sorry about that… I… just…"

Leliana hushed her, quickly replacing her finger with her lips, kissing the mage slowly, sensually, her bare skin moving smoothly over Solona's, eliciting a sharp intake of breath from the mage as her arousal spiked once again. "Do not apologize," Leliana said as she pulled away, a smile like the cat that ate the canary dancing over her lips. _This woman is going to be the end of me_ , Solona thought to herself.  _But what an end it will be_. "I do not think I have ever had such a day filled with lovemaking, without at one point hoping my lover would fall asleep and _leave me alone_. But I need to replenish my strength if we are to enjoy each other again,  _non_?"

Solona sighed dramatically. "Oh, yes, fine." Her stomach gave a sudden, loud growl, lasting several seconds, causing them both to freeze. Solona shifted her eyes from her stomach back up to Leliana. "Okay, perhaps you have a point after all."

Leliana laughed. She got up, pulling the mage with her, and they set about finding suitable clothing. The tent was a mess, blankets, pillows, and clothing strewn about everywhere from their earlier passions. Solona was amused to no end, delighting in the game of trying to find where her various items of clothing had made it after they had returned to the tent in the rain with armfuls of their things.

Several hours later, they had finished their second meal of the day. They had slept in until almost noon – something Solona hadn't done since the time she'd spent with her aunt and cousins – and now it was almost sunset. They'd had an intimate moment earlier, shedding their clothing once more to bathe, which had quickly devolved into more sex.

They were just sitting together in the water now, delighting in the post-coital haze of bliss that had descended over them while holding each other, when voices drifted to them on the early evening air. Leliana looked at her with comically large eyes, and then it became a rush to get their clothing back on, a difficult task considering their drenched skin.

"So did you, or didn't you?" Alistair's voice was half-exasperated, half-amused.

Sten's voice rumbled something Solona couldn't make out. "Where the devil are my trousers?" she murmured. Almost as soon as she said it, they were thrust into her hands by a topless Leliana as Alistair's voice drifted to them again.

"Wait, where are they? They should be here. Where are they, boy?"

"Is he smart enough to know not to lead them here?" Leliana's eyes were still huge. Solona didn't know. Mabari were incredibly smart, but Max's concept of privacy had so far been almost entirely lacking – at least until the day before. He would watch her change, cock his head to the side at her while she used the latrine, stare at her while she ate. But the day before he had kept his back to them as they coupled, curling up in the corner of the tent and snoozing. Perhaps that would continue now?

She was about to say as much, but then Alistair's voice was a little louder. "Are they by the river, boy? Why is he just looking over here? Why won't he take us to them?"

Leliana suddenly hissed at her. "Solona, I can't find my shirt!"

"Oh sod it," Solona exclaimed under her breath, striding forward as she pulled her tunic over her head. "Alistair!"

Leliana's voice sounded in a panicked whisper. "Solona! What are you doing?!"

She ignored the bard, running now. "Alistair, stop!"

She almost ran into him.

"Hey, Solona. What are you doing at the river?"

She groaned. She would find his complete innocence cute, if he hadn't been about to walk in on them. "Alistair, think about it. What would  _you_ be doing if you were bathing with someone else?"

His half-smile turned into a blush as his eyes traveled to her wet hair, her disheveled clothing. He started to stammer out an apology, but Solona just gave him a shove back toward camp before turning on her heel.

Calling out Leliana's name revealed the woman to be crouching behind a thick tree. She was visibly upset, but came willingly into Solona's arms.

"Shhh, it's alright. He got the hint and left."

Leliana's slight tremor subsided after a minute or two, and she pulled away, wiping a single tear that had made it down her cheek.

"Leliana? What's wrong?"

Leliana frowned a little. "I didn't want Alistair to see…" She shrugged lightly, shaking her head.

"He's a gentleman. He would have turned around or closed his eyes or something if he'd made it here."

Leliana sighed. "Yes, but that would not make him un-see the damage, Solona."

Solona blinked for a moment, then, "Oh, Maker, I'm an idiot."

"No, you are not an idiot. I just… being able to bare myself to you… it is wonderful, but it is also _so_ new. I do not want anyone else to know, to see, not unless it's necessary for some reason. I believe you when you tell me I am beautiful, and I am content with that."

Solona nodded. "That sounds perfectly reasonable to me." She was quiet for a moment, then her lips quirked up at the corners. "I swear, that man could use his head as a hammer, he's so dense sometimes."

Leliana giggled. "His innocence is adorable, though."

"Hmph. Maybe I'm just fiercely protective of you. He  _did_  have his eyes on you in the beginning."

Leliana pulled back, a smile playing across her lips, her earlier panic nowhere to be seen. "And you have won in that little competition,  _non_? Am I not a suitable prize for you?"

Solona furrowed her brow. "No. Well, yes, I'm happy to be with you. But I don't consider you something to be won, Leliana. You showed absolutely no interest in him, and then it was pretty clear your interest was in me. But if you had picked him, I wouldn't have tried to win you over. You are a person, Leliana, not a prize…"

Leliana sighed contentedly as she laid her head above Solona's breasts. "And that is part of what is so special about you, my warden."

"You speak like you have been a prize before…"

Leliana's sigh was more melancholy this time. "Indeed, Solona, I have. I am not proud of it, however; I would rather not speak of it if it is all the same to you."

Solona nodded, wrapping Leliana a little more tightly in her arms. "Whatever you want, Leli."

Leliana pushed back again, turning crystalline-blue eyes up into Solona's face, the hint of a smile curling her lips. "What did you call me?"

Solona was suddenly uncertain. "… 'Leli?' I can stop calling you that if you like. It just… came to me in the moment."

Leliana's smile came back, wider than before. "No, I like it. I've never had a nickname like that. With Marjolaine it was only ever 'pretty thing' or 'my pet'…" Her smile fell a little.

"I am  _not_  her," Solona stated firmly.

Leliana shook her head, her smile widening again as she reached up and threaded her fingers into Solona's hair. Solona closed her eyes to cherish the feeling of fingernails on her scalp, her small groan of pleasure swallowed as Leliana pulled her down and kissed her. When she pulled back, the bard's expression was all tenderness. "Indeed, you are very different from her, and for that I am more grateful than I can ever express." She placed a hand on Solona's cheek. "Thank you, my beautiful Solona."

She removed her hand after a moment, turning away from the mage, baring her scarred back and the curve of her waist that widened into delicious hips, making Solona weak in the knees. She desperately wanted to put her hands there, continue memorizing the feel of every inch of skin, pull the bard to her using those hips, but she knew that they would never get back to the camp if she did.

"Now," Leliana said, her hands on her hips as she looked around. "Help me find my shirt, since  _you_  are the one who threw it without thought for where it would land."

* * *

"Good evening, Morrigan."

Morrigan watched from the corner of her eye as Solona came to sit down next to her by her fire. "Can I help you, Warden?"

"So polite!" The warden reached over, taking from the pile of herbs Morrigan was making healing draughts from. "You'd almost think you were in a good mood, Morrigan!"

The witch barely suppressed the smile that was lurking on her lips. She  _was_  in a good mood – having a skilled partner in the bedchamber tended to do that for someone. The elf wouldn't have been her first choice, but what he lacked in body size, he more than made up for in skill – and in a second round once she had awoken to his obvious arousal. But she would not admit as much, even though she strongly suspected that Solona had gotten up to even more mischief while she was alone with the insufferable Chantry wench.

She glanced over to the main fire, seeing Leliana and Alistair speaking easily enough. How did they find it so easy, to simply  _talk_  with no information being exchanged? Perhaps Flemeth did not prepare her for the world quite as well as she could have. Given what she'd found in the fake grimoire, it shouldn't surprise her – she was not preparing Morrigan for her own life; rather she was preparing her to be a suitable vessel for the old soul to reside in. She suppressed a shiver and looked back down at what she was doing.

"I am merely intrigued by what we found in the city. Aside from the filth and human waste, that is."

Solona chuckled. "There  _is_  plenty of that in the city. But what else did you find?" Her hands worked with skill, shredding the roots and leaves, placing them in a spare mortar and grinding them into a paste.

Morrigan spoke as she worked. "We found the Brother's home today, spoke with his assistant. He gave a confusedly jumbled account of the Brother's departure from the city, and attacked us when pressed to clarify his story."

Solona paused, looking up at Morrigan for a moment. "He attacked you?"

Morrigan nodded. "Yes. You will be interested to find out that he was a mage of not inconsiderable skill. Imagine my own surprise," she continued, delighting in the look of shock on Solona's face, "to find an apostate assisting a Chantry Brother. But, alas, it was clear almost immediately that he was an imposter."

"How did you find out?"

"We found the  _real_  assistant's rotting corpse in the back room, along with a more comprehensive set of notes from the Brother."

"That's unfortunate. What do the notes say?"

Morrigan took a healthy dollop of Elfroot paste, placing it in a flask with the other elements required, stopping it up, and giving it a vigorous shake. "He mentioned a village no one has ever heard of, nestled in the Frostback Mountains." She prepared another flask. "It will be cold, with much wandering as we attempt to find this nameless village."

Solona's brow furrowed. "I know you disapprove of this part of our journey, Morrigan. I do not need you to keep reminding me."

Morrigan pursed her lips. "Very well. I will not share my opinions with the group any longer."

Solona sighed. "That's not what I meant, Morrigan, and you know it."

She looked up at her fellow mage, eyes narrowed in distaste. "Either you wish my opinion or you do not. I do not know what it is you seek otherwise. I will not simply talk and say nothing, the way your Chantry whore does, every minute of every day."

Solona's answering retort was immediate. "Watch your tongue,  _witch_."

Morrigan stopped what she was doing, glancing at her fellow mage. Solona sat stone still, the mortar and pestle not moving in her hands. She could see a spark travelling from finger to finger.

"Interesting. Did I hit a nerve?" She continued about her work. "There are secrets in that  _girl_. She is hiding something."

" _That's_  what's irking you about her? Maker, Morrigan, we already  _know_  she was a bard in Orlais."

Morrigan froze, looking up slowly from her work. "A bard?"

Solona shook her head in disbelief. "An Orlesian spy. Seriously, how did you not know yet?"

"Because she never bothered to talk to me with anything but disdain," Leliana called. Morrigan's eyes snapped up to see the majority of her companions staring at her. "I would have told her had she ever bothered with civility." The redhead's eyes twinkled as she smirked.

"I…" Morrigan did not know what to say. Everyone knew the woman had been a spy except for her? "How is it that you are all accepting of this?" She rounded on Solona. "She could be spying on  _you_. She-"

Solona held up a hand. " _You_  are an apostate.  _I_  am a fugitive twice over as an apostate and a Grey Warden. Alistair is a templar recruit who could be giving away all their secrets, _and_ a warden. Zevran is an assassin, Sten a heretic, Wynne capable of tearing out our insides, and Leliana was a bard several years ago. The only person in this group who is not considered to be dangerous is Max, and that's not even true – mabari are rumored to have such a high bloodlust that they would kill babies were it not for their minders.  That is rumor, of course, but people believe it nonetheless."

"It's true," Alistair called, smirking a little. Morrigan scowled up at him. "Given the list Solona just gave you, I'd say Leliana is the least of our worries. Every person here has proven their lethality – and their sincerity."

"So calm down, Morrigan," Solona continued, setting down her work as she stood. "And if you call Leliana a whore again, I won't even bother with magic when I thrash you."

* * *

Alistair had to get Solona on her own if he wanted to give her the item she'd requested he get her in town. He thought it was a marvelous idea, and had agreed immediately. But getting her on her own to hand it over was proving… difficult. She and Leliana were stuck so thoroughly to each other's sides that they may as well have been a tick on a dog.  _Maybe Leliana's the tick? She's pretty small…_

Finally, he decided something obvious was better than not trying. "Solona," he called as he approached them, trying not to wonder about what all the giggles were for. "Can we talk? Alone?"

"Sure, Alistair," she answered, extricating herself from Leliana's side by the fire and following him some distance away. "What's going on?"

Alistair did not miss Leliana's curious expression. "I, uh, got the thing you wanted."

"Brilliant! Where is it?"

"In my tent. I was thinking you could sneak it out the back or something so no one sees."

"Sure. Let's go."

He led her to his tent, pushing the parcel out the back for her to retrieve. He glanced over to the fire to see Leliana peering over curiously, clearly trying desperately not to simply stand and come over, and felt almost giddy with anticipation. She was going to be so surprised! It was too bad he wouldn't get to be there for the unveiling.

He left his tent once more, following Solona deep into the woods so she could check the parcel's contents without risk of anyone overseeing.

"Wow," she breathed upon opening the box. The lute was handsome, made of a dark wood that had been stained almost blood red and then polished and finished to a high gleam. Solona ran her hand over the wood, caressing the instrument almost like a lover before gently lifting it from the box.

"Denerim's a good place to get something like this," Alistair explained. "This one is beautiful, and it's not even top of the line. And I could actually afford it, since I bought it straight from the artisan, instead of an intermediary."

"It's beautiful. She's going to love it." She inspected it in the moonlight, while Alistair studied her.

There was something about her. Her eyes shone, the stress that had been pinching them completely gone. Her body was loose, and she was simultaneously energetic and sleepy-looking. They all had that demeanor, really, an indefinable  _glow_  that seemed to radiate outward. Given that they had all spent the previous night enjoying a night of passion, perhaps it had something to do with that? Did people who'd had sex have a glow about them? He wouldn't know. But he figured it was a good guess.

"So, aside from the news Morrigan shared with me, what else did I miss?" Solona asked him, pulling his attention from where it had been wandering. "Did you get a chance to visit your sister?"

 _Drat! I forgot I told her about that_. Not that he  _wouldn't_  tell her about that – not after her seeing his dream about Goldanna in the Fade. "I… yes. I did. While the others went to find Genetivi. Wynne came with me as moral support."

"And?" Solona put the lute back in its box, retying the strings to keep it shut tight.

"It… didn't go well."  _That's an understatement._

"Did she not believe you?"

Alistair sighed. He owed her the truth, after everything she'd told him about her own shit family situation. "She blamed me for our mother's death before extorting me for money."

"That's horrible!" Solona exclaimed, incredulous. "Did you give it to her?"

"I… might have, had Wynne not been there with me. She made sure I saw that, while her situation – four children and no husband – was unfortunate, it wasn't my fault. She's managing okay as a laundress, while I am fighting the Blight."

"Damn. There's no way around it, Alistair – that is just shitty."

He snorted. "You really do have a way with words, Solona." He paused, shaking his head before continuing. "Maybe once this is all over, I can look her up again, see about finding a better situation for her. We can get to know each other, maybe be a family. I could get to know my nieces and nephews." He paused again, thinking for a moment. "It's weird to think about, that I have nieces and nephews."

"Isn't it?" She stretched, plucking her box up off the ground and beginning to walk back to camp. "I have a brother and a sister. My sister will be an adult in a year or so."

He fell into step beside her. "How did they react when you showed up at home?"

She shrugged. "They didn't know who I was. Apparently my parents act as though they never had me. It’s part of why they left Lothering, I imagine: everyone there knew of their first child who had been taken away to the Circle. Nobody in Denerim knew, including their new children."

"That's terrible!"

She shrugged again. "It's how it is, I suppose. Anyway, my brother and sister seemed to like me alright. We played some games, and they took me out to the market while I was there, asked me all kinds of questions. I imagine we would have gotten on alright if my parents hadn't panicked that night."

"Well. Maybe once this is all over, we can both get to know our families a little. You said the girl will be of-age soon, right? No need to put up with your parents when you see them next."

"Maybe," Solona said, a somewhat sad smile on her face. They returned to camp in a companionable silence after that, sharing a bond in their mutual sense of loss, the loss of something neither of them had truly even had: a family.

* * *

"I got you something."

Leliana roused herself, having just started to drift off, and lifted her head from Solona's stomach, peeking up at the mage through her disheveled hair. They'd made love once more, and now lay together, the sweat from their earlier exertions just starting to dry.

"Oh?"

Solona smiled down at her. "Yes. Do you want it now?"

"Of course I do!" Really! What kind of question was that? Of  _course_  she wanted it now!

Solona chuckled. "Well, here you go, then."

The warden shifted, causing Leliana to move off of her. She sat up, admiring the way the mage's body stretched as she reached for something in the corner of the tent. There wasn't a lot of light – just the orange glow through the canvas from the fire – but it was enough to appreciate the body she had just spent an hour enjoying. Her attention was brought back by the box, however.  _How did she manage to sneak that in here without me noticing?_

" _When_ did you get me something?"

Solona smiled, handing it over. "I asked Alistair to retrieve it for me in the city. It seemed like the most likely place we would find something like it. He gave it to me earlier when we went off into the woods to talk."

"I had wondered what that was all about," Leliana admitted. "In fact I almost died of curiosity when you didn't offer to explain." She scrutinized the box in her lap. What in the world could it be?

"Well," Solona said, displaying her impatience. "Open it!"

Leliana giggled, pulling on the strings and freeing the lid of the box. And then she promptly let out a squeak of shock.

Inside the box was a most beautiful lute. A dark wood, likely stained red, though she would need better light to know for sure, with strings of the highest caliber – she could tell by feel – and a full body that promised a deep, full sound with the plucking of each string.

She pulled the instrument from its wrappings, immediately pulling it into her lap and giving each string a test. They were out of tune, but not terribly so, and the tone quality was lovely, immediately bringing to mind that healing time she spent with Mother Dorothea. She smiled as her fingers immediately picked out a simple tune, her fingers recalling how to play it before her mind had a chance to remember that it had been years since she had played. She would need to build up her calluses again, but this was a welcome thing: the most marvelous gift, with no strings attached except for the literal kind, that she had ever received.

"So you like it then?"

She looked up to see Solona with her knees drawn into her chest. Clearly she had been unsure how this gift would be received.

" _Oui_ ," Leliana said simply, gently setting the instrument back in its box and setting it aside. "It is lovely, and the most wonderful thing I think I have ever been given."

"I-"

Leliana never heard whatever Solona was going to say. She pounced the second the instrument was set safely aside, kissing her fiercely, showing her gratitude with her lips, tongue, and fingers.


	17. The Road To Haven

Solona started to undress, glad to be rid of her armor after an entire day plus several hours' watch. She stopped for a moment when her eyes came to rest on Leliana, sleeping beautifully in her nightshirt on their joint double pallet. In that time before they were lovers, even after their attraction to each other had been made known, they would keep their bedrolls separate, letting Max stretch out between them. Often they would fall asleep in each other's arms, smashed onto one blanket for the majority of the night, but the option of sleeping apart was still there, keeping pressure off, making it clear that neither had any expectations of the other.

Solona had come to bed the night after their physical intimacy had begun to find that Leliana had set up their things like this. Solona had just grinned and taken the woman into her arms the moment she'd come to bed, making for a very satiated, and very tired, bard the next morning.

And it had been that way ever since. Not that it had been that long. Just two weeks, really, and yet it felt like it had always been this way. Solona sometimes felt guilty, reaching for Leliana as often as she did. In fact, thinking back, there had not been a single night they had not made love since Denerim. She was quickly learning that the infamous "Grey Warden stamina" was real– she was unfortunately outpacing her lover, and should probably try to give the poor woman a break soon.

Changing out of her clothing and pulling a loose-fitting linen nightshirt over her head, she lay down next to the bard, trying not to disturb her, and yet completely unable to not give her at least a peck on the cheek. This, of course, led to her softly burying her face in the bard's hair, smelling her glorious scent, and then she had her face buried in the bard's neck, and all bets were off, because Leliana was a light sleeper and Solona had of course woken her up.

"Mmmm," Leliana purred, stretching and wrapping her arms around Solona's neck. "Your watch is over?"

Solona nodded, pushing her face further into Leliana's throat, eliciting a soft giggle from the bard.

"Good. I missed you, and I had plans for you this night." Then the bard's deceptively strong hands (all of her really was so much smaller than Solona) were tugging insistently at Solona's nightshirt, and then it was off and being flung to another part of the tent. Solona tried to look down into those piercing blue eyes, which she could barely see a hint of in the dark, but Leliana had other ideas.

Solona was on her back in a heartbeat, the bard crawling on top of her, straddling her hips and tugging on her own nightshirt. Solona groaned softly when Leliana's skin was against her own, the fiery-red thatch of hair covering her sex pressing against the mage in a way that made her blood boil; and then they were kissing, the bard's soft tongue probing past Solona's lips and dancing nimbly inside her mouth.

Solona's hands found the bard's hips, pulling the other woman to her and grinding up with her own hips. The feel of the woman's hot skin against her own, their breasts gliding over each other, the taste of peppermint and the soft warmth of sleep on the bard’s tongue, all combined to stoke the ever-present coals of Solona’s lust into a raging inferno.

However, when Leliana's hand began to drift between them, seeking out the mage's sex, Solona stiffened. That newly familiar feeling of fingers dancing across her skull, tickling in an entirely uncomfortable way, chased away all traces of her desire in seconds.

Leliana, still on top of her, froze in place, whispering into her ear, "What is it, Solona?"

"Darkspawn."

And she was off, pushing Leliana up and finding her feet. Locating the ties at the tent's entrance, she grabbed her staff and tore the flap open, disappearing through it without a single glance at her naked lover.

* * *

Zevran took a seat near Wynne, who eyed him suspiciously. He grinned lasciviously, scooting closer.

"Why do you plague me so, Zevran?"

"Why do you continue to spurn my advances, Wynne?"

Wynne rolled her eyes. "Really, the fact that we drew watch together is the Maker's punishment. I'm not sure what for yet…"

"Perhaps it is punishment for the handsome man you took to your bed at the Pearl?"

Wynne's expression, a mixture of embarrassment and shock, was priceless, but she recovered quickly enough, her eyes narrowing shrewdly. "I thought you kept insisting I am not too old for such things. So which is it, hmm?"

Zevran opened his mouth to reply, but found himself in the entirely unique position of not having a comeback. It was true, he  _had_  been insisting she was much younger and sprier than she claimed, that she deserved a talented bed partner who didn't need arcane power in order to create magic between the sheets. It had just surprised him that she would so unashamedly go to bed with a whore, given her motherly tendency to act as the conscience of the group as a whole.

" _Touché_ , my dear Wynne." Not to be outdone, his eyes and mouth crinkled up in a mischievous smile. "I take it this was not your first time, then?"

Wynne scoffed. "Of all the… Of course not!"

Zevran chuckled, and, not being one to leave a mystery unsolved, he continued. "So romance in the Tower, is it? Or was it before you joined the Circle?"

"I joined the Circle when I was nine, so no," Wynne retorted.

"Romance with the magi it is!" He thought for a moment, realized he didn't know something. "Mages are allowed to marry, right? You seem like the type who would have married…"

"And what sort of man would marry a mage, do you think?"

"Another mage, perhaps? I was at the Tower – there were plenty of men there. Or are you the type to seek lady love like our fair warden?" He said the last with a wink.

Wynne shook her head and sighed, her entire demeanor changing to one of melancholy. "A union between mages is… not encouraged, to say the least. However, that does not stop us from seeking out each other's… company, from time to time."

Suddenly her unabashed sex with a talented Orlesian prostitute made a great deal of sense, if that was the type of sexual encounters that filled her past.

When she continued, he listened carefully. "That was all it was safe to indulge in. I learned that lesson the hard way, unfortunately."

"Oh?"

She smiled slightly, sadly. "I fell in love with a man, a templar in the Circle. We would meet in secret, coupling furtively in the middle of the night. I… was not very careful."

Zevran peered at her. "You became pregnant?" This was unusual territory for him. He felt much like he might with a feral cat that was only just willing to let him pet it – if he moved too suddenly, he might spook her, and then he would never get her to open up again.

She just nodded, sitting on the log next to him with her chin in her hands, her elbows on her knees, staring toward the trees, though Zevran strongly suspected her eyes were not focused on anything.

He opened his mouth to say something, coax more from her, but he would never get the opportunity. At that precise moment, a _very_ naked Solona came bursting from the tent she shared with Leliana, staff in-hand and eyes already glowing fiercely. The firelight gleamed over her lithe body, showing exactly what the months of travelling and sparring every night had done for her previously soft form. Energy crackled along her skin, threatening to spill over to her enemies, and they weren't even in sight yet.

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Trouble, Warden?"

"Darkspawn," she stated, calmly but firmly, in that many-layered voice that was so disconcerting. She headed off in what Zevran could only assume was the direction she sensed the beasts, leaving himself and Wynne to rouse the others. He was on his feet immediately, his earlier flirtations and conversation put on hold, but not forgotten. He pulled his two long daggers, taking off at a run, trusting Wynne to wake the others from their slumber. A second later, the dog was outpacing him, a howl that turned one's blood to ice escaping him as he ran.

Another heartbeat, and he saw them, likely drawn to the group by the same connection that allowed the wardens to sense the creatures. It was one of the largest groups they had encountered, maybe twenty, with two of the tall, strong ones – hurlocks, were they called? – amongst their smaller counterparts. He hoped the others got here soon, because he and Solona were good, but they weren't  _that_  good. Especially with Solona running around so  _marvelously_  unarmored.

The sounds of snarling filled his sensitive ears, and he was not sure if it was the dog or the Darkspawn. He flew past Solona, who was already hurling flame in the direction of those who outflanked their comrades, eluding her spell and throwing himself into the fray in an entirely uncharacteristic manner. He was normally not a front-line fighter, preferring to skirt the edges of a fight, causing damage and moving on before he was seen. But there were only three of them, the most powerful of whom was completely naked. They needed what muscle he could provide.

Zevran’s first opponent he dropped with little trouble, side-stepping the creature and plunging his dagger into the vulnerable armpit that had opened up to him as it reared back to strike. His other blade took it in the throat while it flinched from the first wound, and he was moving past it before it had even hit the ground. He dropped to the ground himself, a sword narrowly missing his neck as he rolled under the weapon. He immediately reached up, plunging his blade into a vulnerable spot on his attacker's thigh, suddenly wishing he wasn't directly underneath it as a wash of dark, thick blood that stank of the creature fell upon him.

He yanked his blade and pushed himself up, knocking the thing to the ground once he found his feet, chancing a glance around. In the distance he saw a half-naked, barefoot Alistair running with only his sword and trousers, an even more naked qunari – loincloth only – pounding the ground with unadorned feet behind him. Even further in the distance was Leliana, dressed in a nightshirt, taking aim with her bow, Wynne and Morrigan at her side, already incanting. He had only a moment to take in these details, his sensitive elven ears telling him to turn as an enemy closed on him.

Spinning, he took in the sight of one of the hurlocks, which seemed a giant compared with Zevran's diminutive height. He didn't have much time to contemplate his strategy, or anything else but its height, as its fist came barreling into his face not a second after his eyes focused upon it, halting any strategizing he might have done. Stars exploded in his vision, and then he felt the ground connect with the back of his head. The fact that he fell probably saved his life, though, as he heard the whir of a blade slicing through the air where his body had been not a moment before.

Still dazed, he pushed himself up into a crouch, swiping his leg out to take the hurlock's feet out from under it. His foot connected hard, painfully, but the creature went down. Zevran threw himself on top of it, slicing its throat before it had a chance to compose itself.

Pushing himself to his feet, the elf was off, barely noting the taste of salty blood from his broken nose dripping into his mouth, open to accommodate his heavy breathing. Ahead of him, Alistair hit a creature in the face with the pommel of his sword, being too close to actually skewer it, and having grabbed no belt-knife when he came running to fight. Zevran hamstrung the thing as he ran past them, noting with a sort of grim satisfaction the strangled cry as the warden took the opening and ran the creature through.

He ran to engage another opponent, but was stopped just as he reached it by a terrible pain suddenly lancing through his body. He couldn't move, couldn't control his limbs, and yet they moved wildly, his arms seizing, his hands in a death grip on his daggers, his knees and jaw locking up. He felt like he was in the worst drugged episode of his life, a wild energy coursing through his body, demanding he run, fly, jump, and yet unable to do a thing because was trying to do all at once.

Just as suddenly as it began, it fled, and the last thing he was aware of before darkness took him was a normally sweet voice calling his name in a panicked shout.

* * *

Wynne watched as the stream of lightning left Solona's staff, frying the last few standing darkspawn in place. But something was wrong; a flash of blonde hair standing on end had her shouting at Solona to stop while running for her – Zevran was caught in the spell's path!

Leliana was there first, shouting Solona's name as she ran before finally slamming into the naked mage with all her strength and momentum. Solona stumbled, the spell breaking, releasing her dying victims. She turned, eyes flashing and a grimace of anger on her face, but Leliana just reached a hand up and slapped the mage as hard as she could. Solona shook her head clear, her eyes losing their dangerous glow as they focused upon her lover.

"Zevran was caught in the path of your spell!" Leliana explained, her voice shaky. Wynne continued past them, letting Leliana continue to explain while she assessed the damage.

Alistair drove his sword into the last dying darkspawn, wiping the blade clean and sheathing it quickly. He made to go to Zevran's side, but Wynne beat him there, calling the elf’s name as she kneeled to check for a pulse – which he miraculously had.

"Get him to his tent, but move him as little as necessary," Wynne ordered, getting up and watching Alistair and Sten pick the elf up as gingerly as possible.

Once she was convinced they were being careful enough, she whirled on Solona, anger flaring to life. "You! How could you be so careless?!"

Solona stared back at her for a moment, her eyes filled with horror and remorse, before dropping her staff, turning tail, and bolting into the trees.

" _Merde_ ," Leliana murmured, simply standing and watching the mage run off.

"She cannot run away from her problems," Wynne sniffed, fighting the urge to let her anger drain away into sympathy for the girl. She  _knew_  her fellow mage had trouble controlling her magic. She had described finding that if she gave in too completely, she felt nothing but animal instinct, had a hard time distinguishing friend from foe on the battlefield. Wynne had hoped that all the sparring while channeling that energy would help, and perhaps it had, but clearly not enough. She had to be more careful if she was going to be wielding powerful spells that could have such widespread, devastating effects.

Ultimately, Wynne lost the battle with her anger, her memories of what it felt like to lose control when she was young winning out against her ire. It was so easy to forget how  _young_  Solona was – she'd been through her Harrowing only a few months before, and then she was whisked away from the Circle immediately and thrust into battle with the most dreadful of creatures. On top of that, she had this new power that no one had encountered in centuries.  She was like a child new to her power, and Wynne was the only person around to help her tame it. Morrigan was present, as well, but the witch was certainly not interested in helping Solona  _tame_ anything.

"I am sorry, Leliana. You should go find her."

"I will." The bard sighed, looking down at herself. "Perhaps I will change first, get her a change of clothing as well. Max will take me to her, right boy?"

The dog had been staring and whining in the direction Solona had gone, but refocused his attention on her and chuffed agreeably at her query.

Wynne followed the bard back to camp, moving to Zevran's tent immediately. She passed Sten heading back to the site of battle, reaching for the tent flap just as it opened to reveal Alistair. He mumbled something about disposing of the Darkspawn corpses, holding the flap open for her as she made her way inside. She made a note to herself to check the two unarmored warriors for injuries once she was through with the elf.

His breathing was shallow, and he was still unconscious. She set about removing his cuirass, slicing the leather straps along his sides and pulling it out from under him. Then she opened his shirt to reveal his chest, again with the sharp knife she kept always at her hip for herbs and other less pleasant aspects of medicine. His skin, normally quite tan, was pale under the light from her staff. She smoothed his hair from his face and prepared herself to assess the full extent of the damage.

Placing a hand on his chest, she reached her awareness out, focusing her energy in each of his major systems before moving on. All in all, she was surprised to find, he was remarkably undamaged, his main injuries an irregular heartbeat and burns to his skin in a pattern that looked like lightning where the electricity entered his body – on his chest, directly under her hand. The burn she could fix quickly, but the heart arrhythmia required more immediate attention.

"Forgive me, Zevran," she murmured, summoning the words for a quick jolt of lightning, letting it jump from her fingers to his chest, directing it straight to his heart.

The elf seized for a moment, his chest lifting up off his bedroll, pushing at her hand, and then he fell back. The burn on his chest was worsened considerably, blistering and cracking, but the heartbeat immediately smoothed. She smiled, noting his serene expression, something she hadn't seen since they recovered together in the Chantry at Redcliffe. Summoning the familiar spell, she murmured the words, pouring healing energy into his skin, watching as the reddened and weeping tissue was relieved, his breathing easing considerably as the pain and swelling was reduced. His broken nose she mended immediately after, first wrenching it back into place and then coaxing the internal tissues to mend, the inflamed areas to calm.

She watched him for a moment, letting her mind wander a little. It came to the story that Zevran had slowly been coaxing out of her. She had felt like she shouldn't be telling him her secrets, and yet, when he asked, it was like trying to hold back a waterfall, the story spilling from her, her hesitation stemming only from her good judgment warring with her emotions.

Her heart ached momentarily to think of the man she'd been telling the elf about: his dark, curly locks; his warm, sweet breath in her ear; his large hands encircling her waist as he pulled her to him. They had only lain together a handful of times before it became clear that she was pregnant, that she had not been careful enough. She had panicked then – the herbs that prevented a pregnancy did not halt one, and she would be found out. But, at the same time, it had warmed her heart, to think of bearing that remarkable man's child. She had dreamed of a normal life with him, raising their child and taking him to her bed when he returned home at night.

That impossibility would never be, however. In the end they were found out, her love being sent away during her pregnancy, her son being swept away from her while she dealt with the afterbirth. She hadn't even gotten to hold him, to feed him, to name him. She had dealt with the discomfort of breasts that ached to feed a child her body had nurtured for almost ten months, physically and emotionally yearning for her lost child, her lost lover – her lost family.

She hoped he was all right, was weathering the Blight somewhere safe. She hoped they both were.

She was pulled from her introspection by a slight groan, and when she refocused her eyes, she saw Zevran opening his. His eyes were deep pools of black in the soft light from her staff, currently leaned up in the corner of the tent. They focused upon her face, her eyes, almost as soon as they opened, and she felt as though he were looking straight into her soul. She found his hand on her cheek, and for an insane moment she felt an almost overwhelming urge to lean down and kiss him, but it swiftly passed, leaving her feeling confused, but in control of herself.

"Welcome back," she said, unable to keep the smile from her face.

He opened his mouth to speak, but was seized by a coughing spell before he could utter a word. She hastened to sit him up, lifting a water skin to his lips once the coughing subsided some, urging him to drink slowly.

"Ah, but what a lucky man I am to be tended to by such a comely wench," he rasped, his eyes twinkling at her. "I see you could not even wait for me to wake up before tearing my clothes off. I am weak, but I will try to keep up."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm glad to see you're feeling yourself, Zevran. Even after being struck by lightning."

"Is that what makes me feel as though a house is sitting on my chest?"

"The pressure will ease with rest. There is only so much I can heal, and your heart suffered greatly, and along with it your lungs. The skin on your chest…" His hand stole to her hand, which had strayed to his chest again as she spoke of his injuries. She continued, a little distracted now as he looked down at their hands. "The skin was easy enough to heal, but your chest will be sore for a few days, until the bruising has a chance to heal on its own."

She was about to go into an explanation of why – healing spells healed broken tissue and bone, yet could not siphon off the released blood present in a bruise, could not ease the pressure from it, could only do so much for imflammation – but stopped short when he gently lifted her hand from his chest, grazing his lips across her knuckles.

She felt herself blush slightly, feeling like she had all those years ago, when her templar love was wooing her. She had not had this kind of attention since. Her blush only deepened when he spoke, his dark eyes once more looking into hers. "Thank you, my dear Wynne. What would I do without you?"

He had not released her hand, and she found it… distracting. Far easier to deal with was his lechery, his constantly pestering her for access to her bed – or her bosom – than this honest affection. His gentleness, his tenderness, was almost enough to push her into his arms. But she told herself that it was just the night, and the pain and unconsciousness he had suffered, and she resisted the temptation, knowing she would thank herself in the morning.

She smirked as she answered him. "Pester someone else, I imagine."

He released her, smiling as he looked down at his equipment. "It looks like I will have quite a few repairs to make. And darkspawn blood to clean."

"Take off your tunic, and I will wash and mend it for you. The armor you'll have to do yourself, but you'll at least have something to cover your skin while we travel."

His eyes twinkled. "So quick to remove the rest of my clothes, Wynne? How could I refuse such a demand from such a ravishing woman?"

A gentle smack to his shoulder later and she was exiting his tent, tunic in-hand, a smile seemingly permanently etched on her face.

Leliana followed Max through the trees, leaving Alistair and Sten to pile the darkspawn corpses into a pyre far away from camp. She carried a tunic and leggings in her arms, having grabbed them after hurriedly donning her own, forgoing boots in favor of speed. Max had stayed at her command, even though he had literally quivered while looking in the direction in which his master had disappeared. The bard had felt silly explaining to a dog that they would go to her after grabbing her clothes, but he'd seemed to understand, at least enough to wait for her.

She had exchanged hot words with Morrigan, the witch telling her to "go fetch Solona like a good little harlot," and it had taken all of Leliana’s willpower not to attack the woman outright. Even the knowledge that Morrigan could thoroughly trounce her wasn't what stopped her, only the need to find Solona truly  _enough_  to keep her temper in check.

Ten minutes after leaving the camp they found Solona in a small clearing, standing statue-still in the moonlight. Despite her worry, Leliana couldn't help but take a moment to admire the way the soft light from the moon fell on Solona's smooth skin, highlighting the curves of her body, and the gentle dips of her muscles cast into deep shadow. Her hair shone like a halo in the light, the muscles in her back and arms, buttocks and legs, seeming to be caught in a ripple, as though she had been moving, but frozen in place midway through whatever movement she was attempting. She was beautifully sculpted, and Leliana had a hard time tearing her eyes away.

The spell was broken when Max began to whine, leading Leliana slowly forward as he called his master's attention to him. Solona turned, frowning slightly when her eyes landed on Leliana, the remorse from earlier still pouring out.

Leliana didn't know what to say, so she held out the bundle in her arms. "I brought you some clothing." Solona nodded, taking it from her and pulling it on quickly. Then she just stood there, looking down at Leliana with that same frown on her face, one hand absently scratching at Max's head. The big dog grunted, turning his head this way and that to get Solona on the right spot, and Leliana couldn't help but smile at the display.

"Is Zevran okay?"

Leliana looked back up to the mage, cursing herself for a fool for not having anticipated that concern. "He lives, though I left before speaking with Wynne. She did not seem overly worried, however; if I had to guess, he will be in some pain for a time, but there is no lasting damage."

"That's good." Solona’s voice was quiet, almost choked.  _She's been crying_ , Leliana realized, and immediately she was taking the mage into her arms, their height difference be damned, Solona hanging her head until their cheeks touched. The mage's arms twined about her shoulders, holding on to her like she was the only thing keeping her from drowning. It made Leliana's heart ache.

"How could I do such a thing, Leliana?" Solona's voice was hoarse, and Leliana could hear her breathing through her mouth, her nose probably stopped up from tears. "I didn't even see him there, I couldn't see a difference between my friends and my enemies!"

"Shhh, Solona, it will be alright. You will learn more." Leliana kissed the hair poking into her face, laying her cheek against her lover’s. "Everybody makes mistakes when they fight. Zevran didn't announce himself, even though he knew what devastating power you employ, and how close to your most potent range he was entering. And he should know this by heart, as he's the one who originally provoked that power in the first place."

"That doesn't excuse what I did," the mage countered, her tone self-deprecating.

"No," Leliana agreed, "but it does give you something to think on, something to picture when the animal tendencies take over. I believe they can be overcome, and if anyone can do it, _you_ can."

The mage didn't respond, and Leliana could only stand the fraught silence for so long before she felt compelled to break it, hoping to call Solona's attention away from her inner turmoil. "I'm sorry I slapped you."

A snort. "I completely deserved it. I'm sorry that's what it took to bring me back to myself."

"Some people enjoy a little rough handling," Leliana joked, hoping to lighten the mood, maybe remind the mage what they had been up to before the attack.

Another snort. "And I thought  _I_  was insatiable."

Leliana giggled. "Come, Warden. Let us go back to camp and check on our favorite assassin, yes?"

Solona sighed, pulling back and pushing the heels of her hands to her eyes. "Alright. I suppose I can't run away and hide like a child forever."

"No, you cannot," Leliana agreed, her eyes softening as she took the mage's hand in her own. "But I do not blame you. I did so, as well, when I hid in the Chantry."

The mage's eyebrows furrowed. "Wanting to serve the Maker isn't childish, Leliana."

"True, but I'm starting to think that it was more than that. I wanted to serve the Maker, yes, but I also wanted to hide, take on a new identity – get as far away as I could from the life I'd led."

Solona lifted Leliana's hand, kissing the back of it before threading their fingers together. "Well, perhaps we can both stop hiding."

Leliana smiled. "That would be lovely, Solona. Now, really, we should return," she said, tugging lightly on the mage's hand and calling Max to their side. "There is much to do, and if I remember correctly, I left something unfinished before you went running _naked_ into the night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even amidst a battle, and after being struck by magical lightning, Zevran can't turn is libido off. Horndog.


	18. Haven

_A steaming bowl of stew appears before her._

_"Thank you, Mother," she says._

_A hand at her cheek. "You are welcome, child."_

_She tucks into the food with gusto, soaking up what is left in the bowl at the end with a hearty bread baked fresh that morning. She is terribly thirsty, and goes for the wineskin, which reminds her of Leliana, of getting tipsy around a campfire. When she asks where Leliana is, her mother just knits her brow._

_"Who is Leliana?"_

_Solona is confused. "I… You never met her…"_

_Just then, the templars burst through the door, taking her by each limb and dragging her outside. She kicks and screams, fighting them tooth and nail, but it does no good, and she is taken away, her mother standing in the doorway, smiling in triumph. Her siblings skip around the men, singing songs of magic and death._

_Then her brother and sister are genlocks, and the men holding her hurlocks. She fights harder, kicking with her legs, trying to incant a spell of fire, but all to no avail._

_Suddenly a giant dragon's head appears before her; she is facing the archdemon._

Solona awoke to sunlight trying to filter through the canvas wall of the tent. She was confused for a moment. Ever since coming into her power, these dreams that seemed so real had been happening. She was gaining proficiency at seeing them for what they were – not real – but it was always disorienting to wake from them. It was like her connection to the Fade had become stronger since embracing her power, which she supposed made a strange kind of sense, since that power allowed her to enter the Fade all on her own, without the aid of lyrium. Not that she had entered the Fade since her encounter at Redcliffe…

It took a moment for Solona to ascertain where she was, and when she did, she immediately noticed that Leliana was  _not_  lying naked in her arms, nor was she anywhere nearby. The mage abruptly sat up, smacking stupidly a few times at the spot next to her where Leliana had been every morning she was not on watch, with her beautiful breasts and delicious hips, her kisses and caresses and embraces ready to be dispensed.

A giggle brought Solona to her senses. "I am right here, silly."

The warden shook her head, her vision coming fully into focus. What was revealed to her just made her grin: Leliana sitting naked in front of a propped-up hand mirror. Her arms were up, her hands doing something with her hair, and she was twisted around to look at Solona. Her blue eyes sparkled, and, with her arms stretched the way they were, her breasts looked so enticing that Solona had no choice but to propel herself forward, practically tackling the bard as she pressed her face into those delectable pillows of flesh.

Leliana let out a slight yelp and began immediately smacking Solona's shoulders. "Unhand me, beast! I was trying to do something, and now you've ruined it!"

Solona reluctantly released her, allowing Leliana to roll away and sit back up. "Sorry," the mage mumbled.

Leliana narrowed her eyes, the hint of a smile on her lips. "No you're not."

Solona grinned, dropping all semblance of shame. "That's true." She propped herself up on her elbows to watch. "What are you doing?"

Leliana sighed, examining her hair this way and that as she worked different pieces of it. "My hair is growing out, and while I can do many things, I can't cut it myself. I need to find someone who can, but in the meantime it is getting very hot, and I would like to get it out of my face and off of my neck. I was hoping it was long enough for a braid, but I was apparently wrong." She made a frustrated sound and ran her fingers through her hair, undoing the bit of plait she had started.

Solona sat up and held out her hands. "Come here, I'll do it for you."

Leliana raised an eyebrow, showing her skepticism. " _You_  know how to do an Orlesian braid?"

Solona smirked. "What else do you think a bunch of girls locked in a Tower together do with their spare time? We certainly weren't  _rutting_."  _If we were, I might not have been in such a hurry to leave…_

Leliana feigned shock, unable to keep the smile from her lips any longer. "Such  _language_ , Solona!" Then she giggled. "And picturing you with a gaggle of girls, braiding hair and gossiping, is difficult to do. Though perhaps that's where your romantic tendencies developed?"

Solona's smirk turned into a full-on grin. She winked at the bard, getting to her knees and reaching for the other woman. She pulled the bard into her arms, kissing her deeply before setting her down and getting to work.

Leliana's hair was indeed too short for a single braid, so Solona did two of them, making two symmetrical ridges that came together a bit at the nape of the bard's neck. When she was through, Leliana sat examining the job with a small smile of wonder on her face.

"I'm pretty good at it. Good enough to do my own hair when no one else was available."

Leliana met her eyes in the mirror. "I often forget that you had long hair for so long before I ever met you," she said as she patted her hair, testing its ability to stay in place. Then she dropped her hands and turned, studying Solona. "The short hair just suits you so well."

Solona shrugged. "Sometimes I miss it, but mostly I like it better this way. Perhaps you should grow  _yours_  out – then I can have the convenience of short hair, but also get to play with yours." She winked at the last, earning her a small laugh from the bard. Then Leliana was kissing her. Solona tried to capture her, which would definitely make them late for the morning, but the bard pulled away, laughing at Solona's frustrated sigh.

"I am afraid I am out of commission for a few days, my warden," she said, stroking her fingers through the mage's hair. "My courses started this morning – that was why I was up so early." She studied her lover for a moment, peering at her thoughtfully. "You haven't experienced yours once while we've travelled together, have you? Is it because you've lost so much weight?"

Solona frowned. "I actually stopped bleeding  _before_  I lost all my body fat."

"Oh? You did not say…"

"It's… well actually, I don't know if it happens to all Grey Wardens. Alistair said wardens have a very difficult time having children once they're initiated, so I always assumed it was due to being a warden, but there were no women wardens when I was initiated. And they all died the day after my Joining, anyway."

"No one told you what to expect?"

Solona shrugged. "Like I said, there weren't any other women around. Men don't usually know much about women's bodies, I find…"

"This is true. Most men know only that we bleed, and that we can become pregnant." She rolled her eyes as she added, "And  _some_  know where to put their tools…"

Solona giggled before pulling Leliana to her shoulder and kissing her newly braided hair. "I suppose this is just one more mystery Loghain landed us with." She paused, then, "Balls."

Leliana giggled, kissing the mage before pushing herself up. "Come, my warden. Let us go and see what trouble we can get ourselves into this day."

* * *

Solona watched as the raven circled lower, landing not five feet in front of her. A shimmer engulfed it, growing larger until it faded, revealing a very naked, ivory-skinned Morrigan. Solona held out the witch's clothes and boots, being careful to look only at her face, turning her back once the witch had taken her things.

"You do not need to avert your eyes so," Morrigan stated. "It would not bother me if you found my body pleasing to observe."

Solona smirked. "It might not bother  _you_ , but I can assure you it would bother Leliana  _very_  much."

"And do you often let your woman dictate what you can and cannot do?" As always, Morrigan's tone held more than a little bite.

Solona sighed. "It is not about letting her dictate what I do. It is about respect. We have committed to be with only each other: it is out of respect that I do not ogle other women. It is also out of respect for  _you_  that I do not openly, lecherously watch you change your clothing."

"I… had not thought of that. I am unused to hiding my body at all; with only my mother around, it was hardly necessary to have…  _modesty_."

"I can see that. I grew up around many people, and in most societies, people cover their bodies to some degree, sharing it only with those of the same sex, and with the people they couple with. As those two groups are the same for me, I would rather err on the side of caution than make someone uncomfortable."

"Very well. It is interesting. There is so much Mother failed to teach me."

"And we now know that it is because she wasn't preparing  _you_  for anything," Solona said, sneering slightly at the distasteful thought.

"Indeed," Morrigan sniffed. She then walked around in front of Solona, fully dressed.

"Excellent. Now. Did you find anything?"

"Yes. I found what is likely the village we are searching for."

"You did? That's great news! But… how can you be sure?"

Morrigan did a fair imitation of Solona, crossing her arms over her chest and jutting out one hip. "I could not fly so high in that form without being blown off course, but there is obviously some kind of temple high up above the village. I cannot imagine there is more than one uncharted village below a mountaintop temple."

Solona snorted. "Fair enough. Come on, let's go tell the others."

They were camped at the base of the mountain that Morrigan had just flown up. They had been on the road for another month, almost – the hottest month of the summer, it seemed, though Solona knew it would get hotter – and more humid – before it cooled off into autumn. And yet they could not shed their armor, could not grow complacent, for darkspawn were about. Small bands of the creatures had wandered up along the mountain range, probably finding every place Ferelden and the dwarves of Orzammar did not regularly patrol, searching for food and wreaking general havoc. This likely meant that every small village in the Hinterlands and along the edge of the Wilds had been overrun. But the larger garrisons north of that should be keeping the scavenging parties at bay until winter, when the darkspawn would retreat into the Deep Roads to join the rest of their army amassing there.

Solona and Alistair were both sure that the next invasion could not come until the next thaw. Neither of them could cite precisely why, but their impressions from their nightmares of the archdemon were the same: it was frustrated that it could not invade, that it needed to bide its time after the catastrophe at Ostagar, ready more troops. They clung to this, as there was no way they themselves would be ready for an invasion until after the next thaw at the  _earliest_. There was too much to do, too much ground to cover, and too many people calling them traitors, for them to be ready before winter, especially with this excursion to try to cure Eamon. As it was, they would likely be on the road in the snow, but they both tried to avoid thinking about that.

Once the group had reached the base of the mountain range, Morrigan had pulled Solona aside and revealed that she was a shape shifter. Solona had been incredibly frustrated, yelling at the witch for a minute before Morrigan had, with a single word, shifted into a raven and launched into the air, leaving her clothing behind. She had come back more than a half hour later, giving Solona time to calm down. When Morrigan had shimmered back into existence, the warden had explained that it would have been useful to know of this particular talent before now.

Morrigan's reply had been simply that she kept itclose to her when they first met, since shape shifting was not a branch of magic that was condoned by the Circle, and Solona had been a Circle mage, Alistair a templar. Solona had been more than a little surprised that Morrigan had known that about the Circle, but accepted the reason in good faith – it was certainly as close to an apology as she would be getting from the witch.

They found the mountain by chance, Zevran's keen eyesight letting them know that this particular peak had something man-made on the summit, some structure. Solona quietly hoped they found a road soon because otherwise they would be hauling the cart and donkey over rocks. It would still be an entirely awful experience, climbing the mountain with the constant uphill climb in the heat, but a road would absolutely make things easier. The only thing they had to look forward to was the snow on top of the mount – it would likely give them at least a few cool breezes as they climbed.

Solona and Morrigan reached camp from where they had met in the woods. When the witch went straight to Alistair,  _voluntarily_  helping him to pack items into the cart, Solona was completely dumbfounded. She simply stood for a moment, watching, trying valiantly not to let her jaw drop. She failed.

"You should close your mouth before you catch flies." Solona's eyes snapped to Leliana, who stood by her with a smirk on her face. Her hair was still in the braids Solona had given her that morning, and her set off her face – and her crystal-blue eyes – so beautifully that the mage felt her heart kick in her chest for a moment.

"Maker you're beautiful," she murmured, before scooping the redhead up and kissing her deeply. Leliana let out a squawk of surprise before their lips connected, ensuring everyone noticed.

"What was that for?" Leliana asked as Solona placed her back on her feet, clearly abashed at all the attention.

"What?" Solona asked, putting on an air of innocence. "Do I need a reason to kiss you?"

Leliana narrowed her eyes. "Hmmmm. I have a feeling you are deflecting. But I suppose I can overlook it this time."

Solona smiled, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek before going to help Alistair in loading their belongings into the cart, replacing Morrigan for the heavy lifting.

As they packed the cart, she bantered with Alistair. He had been… different, since his stay in Denerim. Of course, so had she, so she really wasn't sure who had changed, or if it was perhaps the both of them. He wouldn't talk much about what had happened there, stating only the situation in the city: that they'd had to kill the fake Weylon, which Solona regretted but agreed was necessary once he'd attacked them; that he'd visited his sister; and that the Alienage had been shut down because of an uprising, which they both agreed was strange. Apparently the arl and his son had been killed, and Loghain had allowed Arl Howe to step in to rule Denerim for the time being. The man was also in control of Highever, after evidently stopping the Teyrn of Highever from conspiring with the Orlesians.

That last one had Solona puzzled. She admittedly didn't know much about current politics, but she was incredibly well read, had in fact learned history from Wynne herself. The Couslands had always been the epitome of loyal Fereldens, choosing duty above all else – why would they conspire with Orlais? She had spoken with Wynne about it, and Alistair, and they just could not think of a logical reason. Given that Loghain was lying to the entire kingdom about the king's death, and the Grey Wardens' treachery, they decided that it wouldn't be unexpected for him and Howe to be lying about these things, as well.

And that was how Alistair generally sidetracked her when she would ask what else had occurred in Denerim. She had tried asking Zevran, but the man would just shrug and say, usually with a lecherous grin, that he would tell her when she told him what she and Leliana had done. That generally shut the mage up pretty quickly. It also made her even  _more_  curious.

Once the cart was loaded up, they set off. The trip up the mountain took almost all day, and it got colder and colder as they went. When snow began swirling past them, they were all forced to dig cloaks out of their supplies. By the time they came to a monstrous frozen lake and began circling it, they could finally see their first signs of life: A penned-in area, obviously meant for some kind of livestock; then a single house; then, finally, they came upon a person: a heavily armored, bored-looking guard. He wasn't bored for long, however, straightening up and telling them to get out of town as soon as they'd traded at the shop. They weren't even sure where the rest of the village was until her rudely pointed behind him, through the trees.

As they headed away from the guard, Alistair spoke up. "Did it just get colder here, or is it just me?"

"They are hiding something," Morrigan replied quietly, glancing at the guard and then Alistair. "'Tis obvious, is it not?"

"Agreed," Zevran chimed in, his ever-present grin on his face. "Quiet, insular communities always have something nasty going on behind closed doors."

Wynne rolled her eyes. "You  _always_  think there's something nasty going on behind closed doors."

"That is because there often  _is_ , my dear Wynne." He winked at her. "I hope it involves chains… I hope they ask me to join in…"

Solona rolled her eyes and shook her head.  _Leave it to Zevran_. "Come on, then. Let us see what we can find out in the short amount of time we are allowed here."

* * *

"What are you doing?! That's private!"

The shopkeeper had traded with them rather reluctantly, but while he, Solona, and Alistair did business, Max had gone wandering with his nose to the floor. He was now at a back room, and Leliana had taken the initiative to find out what had him literally pointing his entire body at the door. The shopkeeper had apparently noticed, however, and was now marching her way angrily, shouting.

"Leliana, what's wrong?" Solona asked.

"Max seems to have found something." She indicated the giant war dog. "I simply came over to check on him."

Solona narrowed her eyes from across the room. "What's behind the door, ser?"

"None of your business!"

"Right... Mabari don't point for  _fun_. Either tell me what's behind the door, or I will find out for myself."

Instead of answering, he threw a wild punch, his fist colliding with the mage's jaw. Alistair and Leliana just stared in shock, Max the first one to take the initiative and knock the man down. Alistair drew his sword and held it to the man, warning him not to get up or try anything. But before he could finish, the man tried to sit up, skewering himself on Alistair's sword before the male warden could move it out of the way.

Solona gawked down at his corpse. "I… what in all Thedas?"

"Maker," Leliana whispered. "Why would he  _do_  such a thing? Was he  _mad_?"

Solona stared for another moment before wrenching her eyes away and striding for the back door. "I think we should find out what he was willing to die to hide."

The sight – and smell – revealed made Leliana retch. She turned her body just in time to not splash her breakfast all over Alistair's boots, thankful for having put her hair up that morning. She felt a hand on her back as she heaved once more, a soft voice murmuring to her at a low, soothing pitch:  _Solona._

"I am all right," she said as she straightened, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Solona produced a handkerchief, which the bard accepted gratefully, wiping her mouth and hands clean. She would have to find a water skin when they went outside once more so she could rinse the foul taste from her mouth.

"It's one of Eamon's knights," Alistair announced as he approached. "No need to inspect him closely – already took care of that, and there's no more information on him."

"Thanks," Solona murmured, eyebrows still knit in concern at Leliana.

"I am fine, Solona," she assured her lover, placing a hand on her cheek and smiling up at her. "That just… was not expected, to say the least. And given…  _everything_ … I am a bit more sensitive to that than usual."

Solona nodded her understanding. After a glance back in the direction of the dead knight, they went outside to check with the rest of their companions, Solona congratulating a very happy Max on his find as they went.

They found only more lies as they continued exploring the village and its single-room huts. Inside one such hut they found an altar that had been literally  _bathed_  in blood.

"This is an unsuccessful attempt at blood magic," Wynne said, studying the altar.

"Most likely  _several_  attempts," Morrigan clarified, standing next to the enchanter. She reached out a hand, chipped off some of the dried blood, and examined it closely. Leliana couldn't be sure, but she thought she even caught the mage sniff at it.

"So, this is from blood sacrifices?" Leliana was unsure if she really wanted to know, but her curiosity won out.

Morrigan's answer dripped sarcasm. " _Yes_ , well  _done_ , putting the pieces together like that."

Leliana narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but beat her to it. "Stow it, Morrigan." Leliana saw the warden looking at her, apology in her eyes. She merely gave her a lover a tiny shrug and an eye-roll, moving to the back of the room to check if there was more information hidden somewhere. Knowing Solona was on her side as far as Morrigan's nastiness went was enough.

There was no more information to be found elsewhere in the hut. When they left, however, they were faced with a veritable  _horde_  of villagers, armed with everything from kitchen shears to actual weapons. Their leader was the guard from the entrance to the village, and the  _only_  one in armor.

"You killed the shopkeeper!" he accused, pointing a finger at them with a scowl.

"He threw himself at me!" Alistair shouted back. "He attacked my friend, and then threw himself on my sword while trying to attack me, too!"

"Enough of your  _lies_!" They were suddenly under attack. Leliana had no choice but to draw her most easily accessible weapons, the long daggers at her hips, and begin weaving her way through the villagers. It was much too easy. Only one or two of the villagers had any combat experience. Only one or two of them even had a true  _weapon_. Leliana fought the bile rising in her throat as she battled, getting sick from the sensation of driving her blades into the flesh of innocents. But these innocents were throwing themselves at her, intent on harming her, harming her companions, and she had no choice but to defend herself. Two of her instincts – to protect herself and to protect innocents – were at odds, and her body was reacting violently to the duel.

She finally lost the battle at the end, dropping to her knees and losing what little was left in her stomach as Alistair ran his sword through the last of their attackers – the armored guard. There wasn't much, but Leliana's body just kept heaving each time she looked up and saw the massacre of the villagers. Closing her eyes, she was able to calm down enough, finally, to be able to get up and walk elsewhere, carefully averting her eyes.

She wandered without looking at the bloody corpses on the ground, ending up outside what was clearly a tavern. She tentatively opened the door, finding the place empty. After a quick circuit to ensure her privacy, she rinsed her mouth out from her water skin and collapsed into a chair.

 _Maker, forgive me._ How could she do something like that? And yet, what choice were she and her companions given?  _You know very well that you could have chosen something else, Leliana_ , she chastised herself.  _You could have aimed to knock unconscious. You could have used that silver tongue of yours and tried to talk your way out of it_. Realistically, Leliana knew that talking would not have accomplished anything. Those villagers were bent on taking her life, on taking all of their lives. And if they were stupid enough to attack armed warriors with clubs and kitchen shears, then there was no saving them. But  _why_  were they that stupid? They must all have gone daft! Perhaps they sought to overwhelm? Or perhaps they were being coerced. They did have that feverish look in their eyes, of a person drugged, or filled with religious fervor…

Solona found her some time later, still sitting in that chair, lost in thought. Leliana didn't notice the mage until she was crouched before her, eyebrows knit in concern.

"Solona," she said, starting out of her reverie.

"Are you alright, Leliana?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. I just… so much death." She searched Solona's eyes. "Does it not bother you, that we just slaughtered an entire village?"

Solona's eyes softened. "Of course it bothers me. But we were given little choice, my dear. And there was clearly something wrong with them. Did you notice how not a one made even a single sound? Even as they died, there was no more than a grunt of pain. There is something dreadful hiding in this village. We must find it and snuff it out."

"You are right, of course. I just… it literally made me sick, driving my blades…"

"Shhh, it's okay. Let's get you something to eat, replenish your strength, yes?"

Leliana nodded weakly, letting Solona pull her to her feet and lead her to the storeroom, where she found some bread to go with the porridge that the innkeeper had left over the hearth.

As she ate, Leliana studied her lover. She had had enough attention to spare to note that Solona had not used a single spell while battling the villagers, using her staff only as a blunt weapon for bludgeoning. The mage had not dared channel her energy once since the incident with Zevran. She was afraid of the power – she had said so. It frightened her that she could lose her grip on reality to that degree, and when coupled with the intense  _rage_  she felt whenever she faced Darkspawn, she found that  _control_  was a laughable concept. The power did not let her control –  _it_  controlled  _her_. And she feared what might happen to her companions should a repeat occur.

Leliana was silently relieved. Solona was frightening when she lost control like that. That someone so gentle with the bard could turn such an alien gaze upon her, so full of glee at the prospect of destruction, was terrifying.

"Why are you staring at me so?"

Leliana blinked, her train of thought dissipating. "Sorry. There is so much to think about. Couple that with the fact that I am always a little introspective around… this time, and it is the perfect recipe for brooding."

Solona smiled. "And here I thought perhaps it was my hideous face."

Leliana giggled. "Hardly. You are beautiful, my warden."

Solona furrowed her brow in that adorable way of hers, crossing her arms over her chest and looking down at Leliana, seated at a table. "Beautiful? Short hair, branded face, tall and muscled? I am hardly a picture of the feminine ideal."

Leliana stood, reaching out to untangle Solona's arms so she could hold the mage's hands. She looked up into Solona's face, studying her features, taking in the swirl of the tattoo, the curve of her jaw, the arch of her brow. The bard's hand strayed up, tracing each place delicately with the tips of her fingers. The woman was beautiful, if in a somewhat severe way. But she was not severe to Leliana – only safe, and warm, that smile brightening her day whenever it appeared.

_I am quickly falling in love with this woman. And I do not mind it at all…_

"You are  _beautiful_ , Solona. You simply  _are_. Perhaps not in a traditional way, but… I do not care. A 'picture of the feminine ideal' is not what I want. I want  _you_. We both are marked permanently by our ordeals – I'd say we are perfect for each other."

Solona smiled, leaning down and capturing Leliana's lips in a delicate kiss. The bard groaned softly into the mage's mouth, delighting in the soft feel of those lips, the warm taste of honey and tea that was omnipresent, mixing wonderfully with that unidentifiable scent and flavor that  _was_  the warden. She slinked an arm up and around the mage's neck, keeping her in place so as to prolong that kiss. She lost herself in sensation, letting all the other thoughts that were vying for her attention slip away until it was just her and her lover in that space in a moment without time.

* * *

They decided to leave the cart at the tavern, bedding down the donkey in the stables behind it. The village was eerily quiet, made even more sinister by the flawlessly beautiful day: the sun was out, perfectly fluffy white clouds floating by on a soft breeze, the only imperfection the utter  _frigidity_  of being this far elevated. It appeared every single person who had lived in this village had been present for the attack upon them. Alistair, Sten, and Zevran had rallied together and built a simple funeral pyre very quickly, setting it alight as they continued into the main village. There was still more blood than snow, but it no longer made Leliana's gorge rise.

Nothing new was found as they explored further, until Zevran alerted them that he heard something strange on the frigid breeze.

"What is it?" Solona asked him, letting go of Leliana's hand and moving to stand beside him as he listened intently.

"I do not know," he said, his eyes closed, his body perfectly still. "It could be singing, or chanting. I will not be able to tell until we get closer."

"I hear it, as well. The breeze comes from the direction we have been moving. It follows that the sound does, as well," Sten remarked, striding forward purposefully.

"Sten, wait!" Solona called as she hurried to his side, grabbing his arm to halt his progress. "We cannot simply go marching in, throwing caution to the wind!"

Sten peered down at her for a moment before answering. "You skulk about. An interesting strategy. Tell me, do you plan to keep moving north until it becomes south and attack the archdemon from the rear?"

 _What in the world?_  Leliana thought to herself

Solona looked up at him, clearly unsure where this was leading. "Well," she started, her eyes flicking over to Leliana, then Alistair and Zevran. "It would certainly never see it coming."

Leliana started to giggle despite herself, a small chuckle escaping Alistair, as well. Wynne, Morrigan, and Zevran, however, were tense, eyes fixed on the qunari. Max whined faintly, his gaze shifting from Leliana to Solona. Sten's response to the mage made Leliana's mirth die in her throat. "Truly. It would surprise  _me_  if my enemy counter-attacked by running away and climbing a mountain."

Solona blinked a few times, her face a mask of uncertainty. Sten took a step forward, continuing. "The archdemon is our goal, and we are heading away from it to find the charred remnants of a dead woman. I will not simply follow in your shadow as you run from battle."

At the qunari's domineering stance, Max leapt forward, putting himself between Solona and Sten, growling deep in his throat. It was the first time he'd had to choose between his master and the giant who often took him out into the woods to hunt, and his choice relieved Leliana. She'd been quietly wondering who the dog would choose if it came down to it. That they were in a situation where the dog was forced to choose really struck her, however, and her heart immediately began pounding against her ribs.

Solona frowned up at the giant horned man, taking her own step forward and calling off the dog. "I am not  _running_  from anything, Sten. If you'd like me to prove it to you, I happily will."

He looked down at her, expression as inscrutable as ever, for a long moment before grunting. "That is unnecessary. I think this quest is foolish, but I will go along with it. You are  _baaselit-aan_ , and I am bound to you. Your decisions are my decisions, as long as they do not require me to disobey the Qun."

Solona raised an eyebrow. "And this does not go against the Qun? The Sacred Urn of Andraste's Ashes?"

"Do you plan to preach and convert me to your false Maker?"

Leliana flinched at this, but held her tongue. Now was not the time to argue the existence of the Maker, of Andraste. She did not require others to share her beliefs, though hearing the Maker called "false" so openly was a little hard to swallow. Thinking of the scorn she'd received at the Chantry in Lothering for her belief that the Maker still worked through those in the earthly realm calmed her quickly, though, and she refocused her attention on her lover.

"No, I do not. I do not care what you believe, Sten. As long as you do not compromise us or our mission."

He hummed low in his throat. "Very well. I will follow your lead." And he backed off, raising his eyes to the rest of the group. Leliana released a breath she had not been aware she'd been holding, moving to Solona's side. When she turned to look at the rest of them, she saw that every single person had a weapon drawn. Sten let out a sound that Leliana realized was supposed to be a laugh. "You have a faithful kith, Warden." He eyed her with a sidelong glance. "Perhaps you will yet give me reason to be a part of it aside from my bond."

Solona gripped Leliana's hand, pulling her attention away from the group, now muttering and stowing weapons, to the mage's face. She was shaky, visibly pale. "Oh dear! Are you all right, Solona?"

The mage exhaled. "I was not expecting things to get that tense," she confessed. "I never thought I'd be in a battle of wills over dominance of a group with a qunari warrior."

Leliana's lips quirked up at the corners. "Well, you performed marvelously,  _mon petite chou-chou_. Now, let us move on before we are surprised by something even more exciting, yes?"

Solona nodded, pulling her staff from its place on her back and taking the lead of the group.

* * *

They came upon the village's Chantry nestled against the mountainside. The singing Zevran had heard had been audible to all of them for the last several minutes, starting up and stopping, repeating the same phrases, though no one knew what was being said. They decided to simply enter, because, as Leliana informed the rest, the Chantry was open to all, at all times.

They walked in during the middle of a sermon or prayer of some sort. The congregation was made up of what must be the rest of the village, but it was immediately obvious that something was deeply wrong with the cleric.

"A  _man_? The Chantry does not ordain men," Leliana murmured, her eyebrows knit in confusion. She hadn't been able to tell from his voice alone when she heard it outside, it was so high and wheezy.

"I know," whispered Solona, giving her hand a quick squeeze before moving forward.

The man giving the sermon didn't wear any Chantry robes that Leliana had ever seen, and he wore a staff upon his back. Staves were not necessarily the weapons of mages – she herself knew a dozen ways to kill or disable a man using a plain wooden staff – but his was carved ornately, adorned with baubles that clearly had some sort of arcane meaning.  _A mage, and a man?_  This was not any Chantry she had ever heard of.

Solona strode forward through the semi-circle of people listening to the man. Her presence stilled the man's speech, and he opened his eyes. Even from across the room, Leliana could see that they were yellowed, like those of someone long with disease. His face was gaunt, his voice high and thin, almost reedy. His eyebrows knit in consternation at Solona, but he immediately fell into a passably cordial tone.

"Ah, welcome," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I heard we had a visitor wandering about the village. I trust you've enjoyed your time in Haven so far?"

He'd heard about them? How did he know? Had one of the villagers run ahead and warned him? If that was so, why was he so calm now?

Solona raised an eyebrow, mirroring his crossed arms and cocking a hip to the side. "Bloody altars, bloody knives, a dead knight of Redcliffe, and the warmest welcoming party I've ever experienced. Really, you make the templars' capture of apostates look like a tea party. What's going on here?"

He addressed the people before him, his voice rising in volume and pitch, a feverish sweat breaking out on his brow as he yelled. "This, my brothers, is what happens when you let an outsider into the village! They have no respect for our privacy!" He uncrossed his arms and reached for his staff, causing Leliana and the rest of her companions to immediately reach for their own weapons. But he did not seem to notice. He was either fearless, very stupid, or both. "She will tell others of us if we let her! Word will spread, and then what?"

His eyes moved back to Solona, who had not moved except to have tensed in her spot. "You, stranger, do not understand our ways. You would bring war to Haven, in your ignorance!"

Solona didn't move, though she was holding her staff. "What have you done with Genetivi?"

"The brother was an outsider. We have learned not to trust outsiders. What trust can there be when you barge into our homes with no regard for those that live there? We don't owe you any explanations for our actions. We have a sacred duty: failure to protect Her would be a greater sin. All will be forgiven!" He said the last with his eyes closed and his chin raised.

And then, they were being attacked, without any audible order. Leliana jumped to her left, rolling into the first person to lunge at her. She pulled a large dagger from her hip and plunged it into the groin of her attacker, the hot wash of blood over her hand and forearm letting her know that she'd found the major artery there.

She was on her feet before she could think about that feeling of blood, running for the three people trying to overpower Wynne and Morrigan. She hamstrung one before hopping upon the back of another, pulling her weapon across his throat as he stiffened from some spell, the blood flowing freely over her other hand this time. She found her feet as the man collapsed, and she turned to deal with their last opponent, only to have him fall at her feet, Zevran revealed behind him as he fell, holding a bloody dagger.

She ran to help Solona, who had squared off with the mage. They shouted words and hurtled energies at each other. As Leliana approached, a teenager with a long knife ran up to Solona, making to slice his knife down her back. Without thinking, Leliana called the mage's name and threw her dagger, realizing what she had done just as the blade sunk between the boy's shoulders.

"No!" She cried out as she reached him, catching him and cradling him in her arms, throwing his knife aside when he tried to bring it to bear against her. She barely noticed that Solona had vanquished the mage. It registered only dimly that the room had gone silent, her companions having incapacitated everyone else in the room. She could only see the boy's face as he died, her tears falling upon his cheeks, his expression one of confusion. The scruff on his face hinted at his imminent adulthood. His long hair was oddly soft against the skin of Leliana's palm. His eyes searched hers, and he whispered something unintelligible as the light faded from them. As he went still, his expression resolved into one of peace.

"No," Leliana whispered, dropping her forehead to the boy's chest, losing herself to the sobs that overtook her body.  _A child. I am a monster. Maker, forgive me…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I tried to incorporate Leliana's religiousness here a little. But the thing is, her piety was annoying to me in-game. How she would get down on her knees and rock back and forth at the slightest provocation. The Leliana I began to write was different from that, particularly when you take into account her past and how she was mocked for her unique brand of beliefs. If she believed so differently from everyone else, I don't picture her getting down on her knees like that at every opportunity. I wanted a quiet faith for her. Not that she doesn't know how the Chantry works. But someone so sullied, and still so good, I think would be quiet in her faith. She doesn't need to talk about it all the time.
> 
> But having her talk about it during this chapter, during the coming quest, makes sense, since it's a religious one in nature. So yeah. Hopefully that makes sense.
> 
> Also, absolute tip of the hat to Raven Sinead for the end there. I suspect the idea occurred to me because of her own story, as well as my own thinking of "Wait, you talk to a teen (I think they meant for him to be near manhood) at the beginning, and then you kill everyone. Obviously that means you kill the kids, too, right?" For what it's worth, aside from the boy dying, it's not going in the same direction at all.


	19. The Temple

Alistair was breathing hard. He barely had time to realize what was happening until it was over – in order to save Solona, who was finishing off the mage, Leliana had killed a boy. She now kneeled over his corpse, her body wracked with silent sobs. Solona went to her first, but Leliana shook her away, refusing to leave the boy's side.

His fellow warden stood up, hands on her hips as she stared down at the redhead. Then she walked over to the false priest’s corpse. She searched it, pulling an odd-looking talisman from around his neck and tossing it to Alistair.

Alistair looked up from stowing it in his belt pouch. "What do we do now?"

Solona sighed. "I don't know, Alistair. This is all so… bloody  _strange_."

He snorted despite the sorrow of the situation. "That's the  _polite_  way of putting it."

Morrigan spoke up, an incredibly annoyed look on her face. "Might I interrupt what I'm  _sure_  will be an incredibly intellectually  _stimulating_ conversation and point out that they have done an incredibly poor job of hiding the doorway behind that bookcase?"

Solona moved to the bookcase after shooting another concerned look at Leliana, still kneeling over the boy with her head bowed. She summoned Alistair, and together they pushed the bookcase aside, revealing a doorway through which they found a dark, windowless room with a very gaunt man, who immediately yelled that the light from Solona's staff was too much for his eyes.

Once she'd extinguished it, he sat up a little, looking at Solona and Alistair with a quizzical expression. "Who are you? They've… they've sent you to finish it?"

Solona whispered to Alistair, "Go get Wynne." Then she knelt by the man. "Are you Genetivi? I'm Solona. I'm here to help you."

* * *

Alistair was concerned for Leliana. They'd had to drag her away struggling from the boy's side, and she had not yet gotten past his death, even though it had been a couple of hours. He didn't blame her for his death. He couldn't even if he'd wanted to, because he would have run the boy through if he'd been any closer. He didn't know what to say to her, though, so he had left her to Solona and Wynne, helping the other two men to gather the bodies outside of the chapel for another funeral pyre. The last one they'd built was still burning in the distance, and here they were building another. It was enough to make him sick.

After treating Genetivi, Wynne reported that he would be all right, though he was undernourished and limping now. A few good meals and he would have some strength. A month of hearty meals and he would be back to a healthy weight and walking unaided.

Genetici said that the key to the temple was on the mage-priest, who he named Father Eirich.

"But the Chantry doesn't ordain men," Alistair had said after producing the talisman Solona had tossed to him.

"From what I can gather, these people's settlement  _pre-dates_  the Chantry as we know it," the Brother had explained. "When the Chantry was established, it was decided that only female priests would ever be ordained. But this place has been without contact with the outside world for so long, it would not surprise me if they aren't familiar with that at all."

That didn't do a lot to clear up Alistair’s confusion. "Pre-date? But… how?"

Genetivi had smiled indulgently like the brothers at the Chantry always had, explaining for him further. "They call themselves the Disciples of Andraste. Some digging led me to believe that they are the descendants of the ones who brought Andraste's Sacred Ashes to rest in the temple on the mountaintop. It was almost one hundred years before the Chantry as we know it was established – before that, it was just small, local Chantries with no overreaching organization like there is now in Orlais. These Disciples are very, very devoted, fanatically so, as you have seen."

Alistair had snorted then. The statement had been so absurdly accurate.

Genetivi smiled as well. "In any event, I can only imagine they stayed here to protect the Urn, and have perhaps gone mad over the centuries, burying themselves in their obscurity. They speak of Andraste as though she is… still alive. I do not believe it, of course. The entire village going mad in their remoteness is far more likely."

The conversation had continued for a few minutes, but now Alistair moved on to speak with Solona about Leliana, leaving Genetivi to pester Sten with questions about his people. "How is she?" he asked as he came closer. Solona was keeping watch over Leliana, who kneeled some distance away in front of a small statue in the likeness of Andraste, sitting stock-still as she prayed fervently under her breath.

The tall mage looked at him and shrugged. "She killed a child," she said, her voice low. "How would  _you_  be?"

"You have a fair point," he admitted. "I would think I was a monster."

"Well, you've hit the nail on the head, my friend," the mage replied, glancing back at her lover with knit eyebrows. " _I_  don't think she is, of course, but that's not doing a lot to change her mind."

"What do you think of it all?"

Solona sighed. "It is unfortunate, but what was she supposed to do? The boy was almost a man, knew what he was doing. What concerns me more is the group's behavior. Are they indoctrinated in some way? Or were they under some sort of spell?" She shrugged. "It's too late to find out."

"Well, we probably killed all their neighbors, members of their families, so wanting to attack us probably was something they were  _actually_ feeling," Alistair replied. "Likely, he told them we slaughtered the village, and played that to his advantage, hoping their superior numbers would take us down before we took  _him_  down."

"A desperate act by a desperate man." Zevran walked up to them, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb Leliana in her prayers. "Children and peasants are i _ncredibly_  impressionable; they will believe almost anything you tell them, I find. If you've been raised to distrust strangers, and then they come into your village and kill your families and friends?"

"You have a point." Solona sighed again. "So, coercion, then. That actually makes this a little more complicated. What if there are more of them in the temple?" She regarded Leliana a moment. Alistair and Zevran's gazes both followed hers. The bard was still kneeling, but had fallen quiet. Her eyes were open, her cheeks tear-stained. Abruptly she got up, walking up to them, a determined expression on her face.

" Leliana, are you all-" Alistair didn't get to finish, as she held up her hand to stop him.

"Please. I would rather not discuss it." She turned to Solona. "Can we find some privacy?"

"Sure, Leli. I'll meet you outside." They all watched Leliana leave the room, looking back to each other when the door slipped shut. "I'm sure she'll be okay," Solona said. "She just needs to get over the shock and see that she took the only option presented to her at that moment."

"Right. Well, good luck," Alistair said, unsure of what else to say.

"Yeah. Right. I'll come get you when we're ready to move on," Solona answered, moving to follow Leliana outside.

"I do not envy her," Zevran commented.

"Which one, Leliana, or Solona?"

"Both," Zevran answered, pushing himself off the wall where he had been leaning and moving to Wynne's side.

Alistair sighed.  _I don't envy either of them either._

* * *

"You know, Morrigan, it would be incredibly useful if you could learn to turn into one of these." Alistair wiped off his blade before bending down to examine the drake they had all just helped to kill.

They had patched Genetivi up, taking some time to give the boy a proper funeral, such as they could, and eat a meal. Now they were making their way through the temple Genetivi had mentioned, the one the medallion had opened. So far they had found treasure and dragonkin. It was all so very  _strange_.

"I cannot just  _decide_  to take on a beast's form," the witch replied, with every bit as much bite as usual. "’Tis not like learning a normal spell."

"How is it different," Solona asked as she knelt down by the drake, examining its scales closely.

Morrigan pursed her lips and crossed her arms before answering. "It requires one to study an animal's very soul, to know it completely. That is difficult to do with a beast that attacks you on sight."

"But is there no incanting involved?" The mage warden look up from her place on the ground, eyes open large in the dimness of the caves.

Morrigan knit her brows. "It is not as precise a form of magic as that. I utter a word that I have come to associate with the animal, but it is not a spell like other magicks."

"As fascinating as this is," Zevran interrupted, "I suggest we move on. I can hear scales upon stone, and I would rather not face another of these things so soon."

"Just a minute more," Solona said, putting out her hand and murmuring to herself. Suddenly, all of the drake's scales fell off of it, making the clinking sounds of metal as they clattered to the stone floor of the cavern. She made a satisfied sound and began gathering them and stuffing them into her small backpack.

"And what do you intend to do with those?" Wynne asked, peering over the bulk of the dead creature between them.

Solona shrugged. "If we can't find someone to make something out of them for us, then we can sell them. Given how difficult it was to pierce the creature's hide, imagine if armor was made from it, then enchanted? It would be light, flexible,  _and_  strong and durable."

"That is a good plan," Sten rumbled, examining the beast's head. "Wearing such a thing would also show what a formidable warrior the wearer is."

Alistair did not miss how Solona looked to Leliana as she spoke, however. He imagined the mage wanted to armor the bard in the safest thing she could find for her. He didn't blame her. He just hoped there was enough there to make some kind of lightweight, tough armor for Solona, as well. The number of wounds she had taken while fighting darkspawn, and now dragonlings and drakes, was startling – she was just too big to be quite as light on her feet as Leliana and Zevran, and it made her _incredibly_ difficult to miss on the field. She either needed heavier armor, or she needed to stop entering the fray. Alistair would like them both to be safer.

He studied Leliana for a moment. The bard had remained quiet since the chapel, fighting with a cold efficiency that was unlike her. Not that she wasn't usually good, but she was the first into battle and the first ready to move on once their foes were felled. Even now, she stood by the entrance to the small cavern they occupied, eyes fixed outward, weapons still in her hands. She was an eerie sight.

"She is going to break, and it will not be pretty," Zevran murmured, having appeared next to him.

"But what can we possibly do to stop that from happening?" he whispered back, glancing down at the elf.

Zevran shrugged. "I do not think there is anything that we can do. She will either come to accept what she has done, and continue on with the group, or she will not."

"Okay, let's go," Solona announced, interrupting any further discussion on the bard as she stood and secured her pack in place.

They continued on, getting deeper and deeper into the bowels of the temple, eventually leaving them altogether for a formation of caverns that had clearly been natural in formation, but smoothed over the years to ease human travel. More dragonlings were encountered, but they also found themselves facing groups like that in Haven, only these were well armed and armored, and had more skill than the people down in the village.

They also ran into several more drakes, these ones guarding chambers full of  _eggs_. The entire place was starting to stink of sulfur, and it was getting very hot the higher in elevation they traveled. It should be getting  _colder_  this close to the snow on top of the mountain, not hotter. It didn't make sense.

Finally, they emerged into a giant cavern, the ceiling opening high above them, cracks in the stone showing bright sunlight outside. Alistair’s heart dropped into his stomach – they had been traveling through these caves all night.  That bright sunlight as the clear morning sun.

The cavern was full of people, all armed to the teeth. A heavily armed man, flanked by two others, strode forward as they entered the cavern. "Stop," he growled, coming to a halt in front of Solona. "You will come no further!" His stance practically oozed hostility. Alistair noticed Leliana and Zevran had melted out of sight, without seeming prompting or agreement. He knew well enough not to look around for them, however, turning his attention back to his fellow warden, who stood just in front of him.

Solona crossed her arms over her chest, a stance they all knew well. It draped her in a cloak of insouciance and tended to have the effect of driving those she argued with mad with frustration. "Oh? Is that so? And who are you?"

"I am Father Kolgrim, leader of the Disciples of Andraste.  _You_  have defiled our temple! You have spilled the blood of the faithful and slaughtered our young! No more!" He walked forward until he was a mere foot from Solona's face. She did not budge. "You will tell me, intruder, why you have done all this. Why have you come here?!"

"I have come for the Urn of Sacred Ashes," she answered simply.  While Alistair could not see her face, he could imagine her raised brow coupled with the defiant set of her jaw.

"You did this all for an ancient relic? Know this, stranger: the prophet Andraste has  _overcome_  death itself. She has returned to her faithful in a form more radiant than you can imagine!" Alistair barely processed that. Andraste back from the dead? Another form?  _What could he possibly mean?_  "Not even the Tevinter Imperium could hope to slay her now. What hope do  _you_  have?"

Solona shifted from one foot to the other. "And the Ashes?"

"They are still in this temple. But why do we need Ashes when we have the Risen Andraste in  _all_  her glory? But if you are after them, then perhaps we can strike a deal, and you can atone for your desecration of our home and temple."

Alistair listened to his proposal, convinced by the end that the man was mad. He wanted them to take a vial of the Risen Andraste's blood and defile the Ashes with them. This would allow their Risen prophet to truly realize her divine power, according to Kolgrim. It was lunacy.

Yet Solona listened, head cocked in consideration.  _Leliana must be fuming_ , Alistair thought to himself, resisting the urge to look around and find her. He  _did_  let his eyes slide to Wynne, however. Her expression confirmed his own beliefs about Kolgrim – she looked upon him much as she had Uldred. She was thinking as he did: if the Ashes did truly exist, as the false Father claimed, then they had to find them, keep them from this monster who would defile something so sacred for something of the flesh. To even  _consider_  such an act was beyond mere sin.

Solona suddenly straightened in front of him. "The Ashes are real, and you would see us desecrate them? I would see you dead first."

She had her daggers out before Alistair could pull his own sword. His shield still strapped to his arm, he did the only thing he could think to: take a running start and crash into Kolgrim, knocking him senseless before he could even pull his weapon. Alistair pulled his sword from his hip and ran the man through, saving them all the trouble of dealing with him and his wicked-looking two-handed axe. It also had the bonus of getting rid of these cultists' leader, which would either demoralize them, or enrage them into making mistakes, either of which could only work in their favor.

He turned to face another opponent, bringing his sword up to parry a blow meant for the weak spot in his armpit. Knocking aside the blade, he twisted his wrist back, taking the woman attacking him in the side between plates of armor. As she winced from her wound, he pulled back and took her in the throat with the sharp top of his shield, completely decapitating her. He avoided looking at the carnage he had wrought as he moved on to his next opponent.

He lost track of time as he fought, raising his shield or sword when required, weaving in and out, shouting challenges to keep the majority of those they were fighting away from Morrigan, Wynne, Leliana, and Zevran. At some point, it registered that Solona had ended her self-imposed ban on her arcane powers. The battle ended quickly after that, Solona's wild, glowing eyes set in a murderous scowl as she sent electricity dancing down her sword and along the body of the man who was poised to strike against her fellow warden.

Panting, he turned to see how the rest of his companions fared, only to find that he suddenly could not move.

"Warrior! Face me!"

In the distance, coming down a flight of stairs from some kind of dais, was a figure in full, shining gold armor. The voice was male, the figure a commanding presence as it strode purposefully down the steps. Solona's figure sprinted into view, and Alistair realized he would be forced to watch this battle without being able to do anything to sway it at all.

* * *

Solona pelted for the figure at the far end of the room. Without knowing how she knew, she was aware that he was controlling her allies, keeping them still, keeping them from attacking. Her narrowed vision allowed a hyper-focus, and she could see every movement the form made, every detail of its armor, weapons, even the etching on the tops of its boots.

The battle was joined a moment later, her sword catching his before her head was separated from her shoulders and shoving him away from her. She let out a cry, directing electrical energy to travel through her sword once more, but it was caught by her opponent's sword, sparking along the weapon without hurting the armored figure.

Her body screamed in pain when the energy was directed back at her. Her muscles seized even as her mind fought it, reaching out and containing the energy, directing it away from her body. The burns were already healing when she launched herself at her opponent once more.

She hefted the dagger she held, tossing it under-handed at the figure. It burst into flame as it flew, but the man just raised a hand, an arcane shield of shimmering energies rising in front of him, halting the blade in mid-air. It fell to the stone floor, utterly harmless, the flames winking out of existence as she turned her focus back to this man in front of her.

This man was a mage. He was an arcane warrior, like her. She was evenly matched.

 _Balls_.

Pulling another blade from her hip, Solona lunged, knocking his sword aside with her own as a narrow beam of white light burst from its tip, charring part of a boulder nearby instead of her flesh. She thrust with her dagger, picturing electricity once more. This time it did something, as the blade connected with flesh, piercing through a weak point in the man's armor. He cried out, taking the altogether plain tactic of shoving her off of him with both hands.

She made the mistake of treating him like any other opponent at that point. The second or two that she used to push herself to her feet and collect her weapons was all he needed to start healing his body. The paltry stab wound was hardly enough to slow him down, even with the wound damaged by electricity as it was.

Her vision reeled when he slammed a fist into her face. She let the momentum carry her, which probably saved her life, as that wicked sword came slicing where her throat had been a moment before. She crouched low to the ground, going on the defensive for the first time ever while channeling her arcane energy.

Taking that moment near the ground gave her an advantage, and it was with a grin on her face that she was up and moving. She had to wound him mortally, and keep up the pressure until whatever lethal wound she gave him bled him faster than he could heal. She couldn't wear him down, nor could she get an advantage in strength – he was far larger than she, large muscles bunching under thick plate armor. No, the only advantage she had was speed. She had to do this before she made a mistake.

She leapt forward, somersaulting under his outstretched blade, not quite able to avoid a blast of flame before ramming into his shins. It hurt, his metal greaves biting into the flesh of her shoulders that had just been crisped, but it stumbled him long enough for her to again find a weak spot for her dagger. She thrust up, shoving her dagger so far into his leg that she felt the tip graze his bone. She didn't hesitate for a second, yanking it so that there was no option but for her to have hit the artery hidden deep in the groin, and was rewarded with a splash of crimson over her wrist. Leaving her knife there, she channeled energy through her hand, through the blade, sending electricity, heat, and flame directly into him, frying him in place as she felt him sending a spell her way.

She did not avoid his spell. Even as he died, cooking in his boots, she was thrust into a waking nightmare.

Leliana was dead. Irving was dead. Wynne, Alistair, and Morrigan were all dead, lying at her feet, the blades that had killed them hanging limply from Solona's fingers. She had killed them, lost control and directed a blast of energy toward them so strong that it had torn them all into pieces. She tossed her head back, wailed her fury, her sorrow, into the sky, a scream of pure agony torn from her throat.


	20. The Mountaintop

Solona's scream echoed around the chamber. But as abruptly as the nightmare started, it vanished. Instead of little Robert dead in her arms, the mage held a dagger buried in the thigh of the warrior she'd been fighting. She let go of the smoking metal, only to scream as pain seared her palm, setting her nerves afire from her wrist to her fingertips.

The skin on her hand had been fused with the metal hilt of her weapon, and it came off as she attempted to let the weapon go. As she was no longer channeling her arcane energy, it was not healing, and  _all_  of the skin had come off, leaving a  _bloody_  mess. Staring at her hand, she was simultaneously horrified and fascinated.

Her fascination was broken by a groan in the distance.  _The others_. She had no time to risk channeling that energy once more, could not risk losing herself to it when the others could be hurt. Cradling her hand to protect it, she got to her feet, leaving the warrior's corpse for later. She would need to find other clothes. The shirt she was wearing, and the armor over it, were somewhat tattered thanks to the last blast of flame that had crisped the skin of her shoulders and back.

Coming upon Alistair first, she got him to his feet with her good hand.

He shook his head much like a dog, probably attempting to clear it. "What happened?" His voice was garbled, and he winced in pain, his hand going gingerly to his jaw.

"You were unconscious and I'm not, for once," she quipped, trying to get a good look at his face. Something wet dripped down her wrist, and she looked down to find that her hand  _really_  needed tending to.

"Maker's blood!" Alistair exclaimed. Before she could protest, he was pressing bandages from his belt pouch to her hand, soaking up the blood before reaching for one of the healing potions she and Morrigan made most evenings. Pulling the stopper with his teeth, he forced it into her uninjured hand. She downed it dutifully. It took a minute or two, but her hand healed enough to stop bleeding. It still looked a mess, though, covered in scabs or red, raw, new skin. She could have Wynne heal it better later. She was not averse to scars, but the entirety of her right palm would not do – she needed to be able to grip things. If only normal healing magic worked on oneself.

"Thank you," she muttered, flexing her hand a few times before looking about the cavern. Everyone else was waking up. "Let's get everyone on their feet, see if anyone needs more help than you do, shall we?"

He agreed, and they set about assessing their companions, seeing how everyone fared. Everyone, as it turned out, was  _not_  okay. Wynne was severely drained of energy, as was Morrigan. Solona was unsteady on her feet, swaying as she moved from person to person. Zevran was injured, though not life-threateningly for once, his shoulder a bloody mess. Alistair sported a broken jaw from a well-placed gauntleted fist. Sten limped as he stoically moved about the cavern. Even Max sported several superficial wounds.

The only person not injured was Leliana, but she was still quiet, doing everything she was asked, but not speaking, going through the motions almost mechanically. Solona was worried. She couldn't go on like that forever. But for now, she would leave her lover alone. They needed to rest, eat something, replenish their strength. They had no idea what might be waiting for them when they left the cavern.

* * *

"Wait. How did you break his hold?"

"I don't think I did."

Solona sat in the middle of her companions. She, Wynne, and Morrigan had healed what they could, but no one had emerged from their battle with Kolgrim's cultists unharmed, and the three mages were  _tired_. But this was a conversation that needed to happen  _now_.

Wynne looked at her critically. "What exactly happened?"

Solona shared the battle play-by-play, ending with her waking from the very powerful nightmare that was cast into her mind. "Honestly, I think the only reason it broke was because he died," she finished. "It was  _that_  powerful."

Alistair placed a hand on the mage's forearm. "Wait – this man was another arcane warrior? Like you?" He could talk normally now, his jaw having just been healed by Solona herself.

Solona nodded. "Yes. I don't understand it, but he was. But he… wasn't as powerful, or wasn't used to channeling the energy, or something. I'm not sure – I didn't exactly get a chance to ask him."

Alistair worked his jaw for a moment and then asked, "Have you checked his body yet?"

She shook her head. "No. I've been far too busy making sure no one bled out."

He pushed himself to his feet. "Well," he said, dusting off his trousers and holding a hand out for Solona. "I say we check him out and see what we can learn."

Wynne took his extended hand next. "I agree. If there was another like you, Solona, then we need to learn what we can."

"Yes, you're right, of course. I was just worried about you all. And for good reason – that was the bloodiest battle we've experienced so far. We did well, but we would be nowhere without magical healing. Morrigan and I need to learn more if we're to keep up with this group."

Leliana got to her feet, as well, taking the mage's hand and giving it a squeeze. She was still very quiet, the blood splattered on her armor incredibly unlike her. Usually, she was the only one who made it out of battle with very little cleaning to do. Solona knew it was her guilt, being furious with herself, that sent her into battle at such close quarters. She wasn't sure, as the bard wasn't talking about killing that boy, but she would wager that the bard had lost some of her guilt fighting these armed warriors. She didn't blame her for the boy's death – he had been about to skewer the mage – but she understood the bard's guilt. It worried her, though, because it was one of the few things the bard could feel that the mage could do nothing to alleviate. She almost wished Leliana could be angry with  _her_ , as she could do something about  _that_.

They didn't find much. The body itself was unremarkable, except that he, too, had pure-white hair and beard. But other than that, he was simply a pale-skinned man skewered and bled dry from the wound to his groin. There was no mysterious explanation for his presence here, no manual or text upon the nondescript dais from whence he had appeared. He was as dead as any other dead man. But that white hair…

They did find a sword on the man: a decent length, thinner than what any of them used and yet long and elegantly curved, exquisitely balanced. It practically sang itself to life when Solona lifted it from the ground. It felt warm to the touch, but not like hot metal; more like warm, inviting  _skin_. Energies sparked along the blade, a faint humming sound filling the air. Solona felt the power within her respond, and without thinking much of it, she allowed the power to rush through her. The blade danced with flames, switching swiftly to radiating frosty air, before lightning flickered along the blade, all at the whim of her mind. Her hand also immediately healed itself completely.

"It is made for a being like me," Solona's multi-toned voice declared. She heard the voice for the first time, cutting off that power in her shock at what she heard issuing from her own mouth. Looking up, she realized that she could decide to tunnel her vision into its hyper-focused state or not. She also had retained her mind while channeling the energy far more easily than usual.

Shaking her head, she continued, a little bewildered, promising to herself to discuss it with either Wynne or Alistair later on. "It channels the energy as well as my very body." Her voice was low and soft, her eyes wide in awe, staring at the blade.

"What do you mean?" Alistair asked.

"I can't describe it," she answered, still staring at the blade. "It's almost as if it just…  _knows_  what I want of it. It almost feels as though it siphons off the extra energy that my body cannot hold. It relieves a pressure, almost. It hums to the tune of my body; its song is the most… _right_  thing I have ever heard."

"Perhaps," Leliana said, gripping Solona's sword-arm lightly and pulling the sword down, catching the mage's eyes with her own. "Perhaps we should take it with us. But don't  _use_  it yet, Solona. We know nothing about it. Other than that it is obviously a powerfully enchanted weapon."

Solona blinked and nodded. It was the most words Leliana had said since their private moment outside the Chantry, which had really just been Solona holding a desperately sobbing redhead. "You're right, of course. Let me just take the sheath for it, and I'll keep it with me, and we can see if we can find more information." She paused, looking around the cavern. "Another just like me," she murmured to herself, shaking her head before moving away, sheathing the sword in the scabbard taken from the dead mage.

* * *

It took them a while to regroup. They found a whole host of supplies in a small cave in the back of the massive cavern, full of bedrolls, food supplies, and even firewood. They built a fire, setting up the bedrolls so everyone could get some rest. Sten claimed to not need any, volunteering to take watch so everyone else could rest.

Solona set up hers and Leliana's bedrolls somewhat away from the others, in the room where they found the supplies. She was worried about the bard, and wanted to speak with her. Even just some time alone, to not have to worry about how the others saw her, might do Leliana some good. She also didn't think anyone would appreciate being able to hear them, even if all they did was talk.

She now sat waiting for the bard to return from relieving herself. She knew Leliana was going through her courses, and that might also be affecting her. Certainly, the vomiting from earlier could be explained best by that – they'd come across nasty smells and sights before, but nothing had ever made the bard lose the contents of her stomach like that. And twice, no less! It probably also was putting her in a sullen mood, having to fight with linen bandages calling her womanhood their home. All in all, Solona was rather glad she didn't need to worry about such things, though a solid answer about whether hers stopping was due to the taint in her blood or not would be nice.

A very deliberate scuffing of a boot against the stone floor interrupted her contemplation of womanhood and linen bandages. Her head snapped up to find Leliana watching her from the cave's entrance. The bard's lips were pouted in a frown, her brows knit and her eyes narrowed. Solona contemplated getting to her feet, but decided to just hold out her hand. Leliana's frown abated for a moment, a slight smile gracing her lips as she walked forward and took the mage's hand, allowing herself to be pulled onto her knees next to the mage.

"Are you having any pains?" Solona asked, trying to get Leliana's attention from where it appeared to be fixed on the floor. "I have the ingredients to make you something for it, if you like."

"That… would be nice, actually," Leliana replied, her voice soft, barely voiced.

Solona got to work, taking the leaves of various herbs and grinding them down into a fine powder. She began to hum to herself quietly as she worked, losing herself a little, getting a supreme amount of satisfaction from the simple work. Potion making had always been a pleasure for her. Her mind remembered ingredients and what they could be used for well. The infusion of magic into the potions was also well suited to her normal incanting – one did not need to make potions quickly, in life-or-death situations, so her need to take time with spell casting was always well suited to this task.

She put a stopper on a flask and shook, recalling the words she needed. Reciting them under her breath, she focused the power into the flask, holding it out to Leliana immediately after she was through. "It won't taste nice, but it should work pretty quickly. It's a mixture one of my instructors came up with to specifically target a woman's pains without leaving said woman addled."

Leliana took it, expressing her gratitude before downing the entire thing. "You're right," she said once she'd swallowed, looking back up to her with a sour expression. "It does not taste good."

Solona snorted a laugh. "Give it a few minutes. I've made it countless times for my own pains. It works wonders."

Leliana nodded, handing the flask back before drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She still wore her armor, but her weapons had been set aside, leaving her looking smaller and meeker than normal. Or perhaps that was her uncertain posture, with her chin on her knees?

"Leliana?"

"Hmm?"

"Leliana, look at me?"

Shining blue eyes met hers. Solona could see the sadness in them, barely held in check, ready to burst forth.

"Leli, please talk to me?"

The bard sighed, unfolding her body and taking one of Solona's hands. "I do not think talking will fix it, Solona."

"I don't think so, either. But I do think it is important to talk, nonetheless. At least with each other."

"What do you want me to say? I killed that boy." Leliana's voice got very quiet, her gaze slipping away from Solona's. "Without even thinking. I am a monster."

"Hey!" Solona barked, hoping to shock Leliana into looking at her. It worked, the bard's eyes snapping back to her, a flash of anger flaring in them before the guilt replaced it once more. "You're  _not_  a monster, Leliana. You are a  _good woman_."

The anger flared back up. "How can you say that?" She pulled her hand away, sitting up taller and glaring at the warden. "How can you sit here and tell me that I am good after I did such a thing? I _killed_  that boy, watched his life fade away in my arms!"

Solona sat up just as straight, fighting to keep a smile from her lips as she responded. This was working better than she had hoped. "He was trying to kill me! Are you saying you should have let him?"

"What?! No! Of course not! But I didn't have to kill him!"

"Are you saying that there was some way you could have incapacitated him without a blade?"

"It was the only thing available that quickly!"

"Are you saying you could have stopped him? Stopped the manipulation of the man I was fighting?"

"No! I could not!" The bard was on her feet now, pacing. "I had no other choice! It was the only way to stop him from hurting you! We cannot afford to lose you, cannot afford only one Grey Warden!" Solona found her feet just in time to have Leliana whirl around, pinning her with those fiery, crystal blue eyes, full of defiance. "I cannot lose you! He even continued trying to kill me after his life was fading from his eyes! How could they do such a thing to  _children_?!"

Solona's voice was quiet. "I do not know, Leliana. But by stopping that boy, you allowed me to stop the one who manipulated them. You're not the monster here, Leli.  _He_  was. The  _parents_  were. You just got the fallout from  _them_."

"That's just an excuse." The bard's voice was hard, full of so many emotions and yet devoid of them all. "There had to be another way."

Solona took a risk, got very close to her bard, within touching distance, but not actually touching her. "There may have been, but you did what you had to, to save everyone else. How many children will the archdemon kill? The man I was fighting clearly cared nothing for the people of that village, sending them against armed warriors in order to save this false prophet, armed with nothing but clubs and knives from their kitchens! You should be  _angry_ , Leliana."

" _I_ _ **am**_ _angry_!" The bard's voice echoed off the walls. Solona was sure everyone heard that, but didn't really care. She had to act quickly, or Leliana would fade back into her guilt. She needed her angry. She was on  _fire_  when she was angry.

She was also  _sexy_  when she was angry. Solona couldn't help it; she had Leliana in her arms in a heartbeat, the bard's lips crashing into hers as she veritably  _climbed_  up the mage, wrapping all of her limbs around her.

Their clothes were off quickly, their lips and teeth finding the other's skin with barely any restraint. "Make me feel good," the bard pleaded, purred, growled.

They would be a mess when they were done, but once again, Solona did not care. All that mattered was sustaining this intensity, allowing her bard to feel something other than guilt.

So she did as Leliana asked: she made her feel good.

* * *

They emerged some time later on the top of the mountain. They had rested long enough that the sun had set. The stinking sulfur smell was a hundred times worse out here, obviously coming from the steaming yellow pools of liquid spread about.

It was very hot nearby the pools, with the snow having melted within ten yards around each one, the snowmelt probably providing the fresh water that was steaming in the pools.

"The sulfur gas must come up from deep within the mountain. The heat is perfect for incubating those eggs we found," commented Wynne as they all took in what they could. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it was a full moon, meaning there was very little they couldn't see, especially after so long spent in caverns, out of view of most natural light.

"We should have destroyed them all," Sten grunted, brows low over his eyes in a glower.

"I didn't want to condemn them to extinction just because the grown ones were dangerous," Solona replied, careful to keep any emotion from her voice.

"The young ones were dangerous, as well."

She stopped, looking over to him. "Do you punish a bear for its very nature just because it  _could_  harm you?" She narrowed her eyes at him.

"No," he grunted after a moment. "You disable the threat, but its nature cannot be helped. And it should not be wiped from existence because of it." He looked away again. "Your argument has merit."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Thank you oh so much for your approval," she muttered, stepping out in front of the group to begin the descent toward the rest of the temple on the far side of the plateau.

"Are you and he all right?" Leliana whispered. She'd appeared silently, as was her way. She was still quiet and contemplative, but their lovemaking, along with subsequent sleep, seemed to have helped to restore the bard to be more like her usual self, if still a bit subdued. It made Solona's heart soar to see.

"Yes, it's fine," she replied, internally rolling her eyes. How was she supposed to lead a giant horned warrior who was questioning her at every turn, and who apparently respected her less because she was a woman, and a mage to boot? Apparently his vow of service did not include the stipulation that he not mouth off. She was starting to wish she'd had the foresight to think of it when Leliana had freed him from his prison.

"Why do you think he is challenging you like this?" the bard asked her.

Solona barely kept from a derisive snort. "One thing I'll give him – he does not keep his reasons for his actions to himself. He stated quite clearly why he was acting the way he was this morning."

"Perhaps," Leliana said, clearly thinking. After a moment, she continued. "But he still has not told us why he killed those farmers. His evasion has not ceased."

Solona frowned. "You have a point. Perhaps I should ask him again when we're off this damned mount-"

She never got to finish what she was saying. Instead, she was struck momentarily dumb by the beat of very large, very powerful  _wings_.

A dragon.

A  _high_  dragon.

"Maker," Alistair breathed behind her. "It never bloody  _ends_." It was enough to jar her from her own shock.

"Scatter!" she shouted, and then she was off, pulling her staff and taking three running steps away from the group.  _That was far too close_ , she thought to herself, flinging her body away from where they had all been standing. Heat exploded behind her. Looking back, she was pleased to note that not a single person was anywhere close enough to that spot anymore to be damaged by the flame, but only had time for that one thought before she had to find her feet and run again; the dragon sent another ball of flame toward her, not letting up, following  _her_  movements specifically with its large head.

She turned and sent a blast of cold its way, figuring that a creature of fire could not stand the bitter cold. It did not even reach the target, however – she was too far away to reach it effectively with a spell. She put on a burst of speed, willing the well of power to come to her, finding it immediately in her very center and opening herself, letting it pour through her, using her body as a conduit. Her vision narrowed, time seemed to slow, and a grin spread over her lips.

This.  _This_ was a challenge. One worthy of her power.

She pulled the blade that sang to her as she dropped her staff, abruptly changing direction and heading  _toward_  the beast.

In a single moment she glimpsed the entire battlefield. Alistair and Leliana stood well away, peppering the dragon with arrows. Most bounced harmlessly off scales, but enough found tender flesh – around the eyes, inside its gaping maw, in between its toes – to irritate it, necessitating their relocation every few shots. With the flick of her wrist, Solona caused the tips of the arrows to freeze, willing them to freeze the flesh of their target when they hit home.

Wynne was also far away from the beast, casting her healing spells upon those of their party best suited to short-range melee combat as well as sending her own punishment toward the beast. Sten was taking the brunt of the punishment from large, sharp talons, darting out of the way just in time with each swipe of the claws and bringing his sword down to try to find the same tender flesh the arrows were finding. Max rushed toward the back feet of the dragon, growling fiercely and biting at the creature's heels, causing it further irritation. Zevran, mad as he was, appeared to be attempting to sever the creature's tendons in its legs, but the scales were proving too thick for his weapons.

It gave her an idea, though.

"So  _this_  is the Risen Andraste," Morrigan's voice half-shouted. Solona's narrowed vision had kept her from seeing that the witch had joined her in her mad dash for the dragon, her heightened senses not warning her because the woman was not a threat. Now she miraculously kept pace with the warden, sprinting alongside Solona with staff in-hand.

There was no time to answer her, not that she was probably looking for an answer. The moment of surveying the battlefield had passed, Solona's idea was taking form, and she could easily outrun anything the dragon was sending her way. Just a few moments later, she had reached the beast. She leapt for it, willing herself higher than any natural leap would ever take her. She landed where its tail met its body – precisely where she needed to be.

Heedless of the razor-sharp spikes adorning the creature's spine, she raised the enchanted sword, aimed, and plunged it between two scales. She drove the tip deep, icing it as she went, wrenching it from side to side, attempting to sever the dragon's spine between its hindquarters. The beast screamed, belching out flame and acidic saliva. Then it shuddered for a moment before its hindquarters collapsed, effectively immobilizing it.

Solona shouted in triumph, pulling her sword and laughing, her head thrown back to the heavens. Her celebration was short-lived, however. Just as she sensed something was wrong, moving to avoid danger, the shadow of the dragon's head descended upon her. Before she could get away, she was encased in those jaws, dozens of razor-sharp teeth pressing in on her, treating her to the worst pain she had ever experienced in her life.

She screamed, the power surging forth to save her, a mental blast of force whipping the dragon's head to the side, forcing it to release its prey. She hit the ground with bone-breaking force, but was healing so quickly that she could push herself to her feet with little difficulty almost instantly. She took a single moment to collect herself, to finish healing her body, noting with a detached astonishment that the blade was still in her hand. Then she was running for the beast once more.

But she was too late. In panic, Alistair must have drawn his sword and shield and run forward to free his fellow warden. Instead, she had freed herself, opening him up to the beast, which seemed to have taken Solona's damage to it personally. Before the mage could reach the creature, it had Alistair in its jaws, clamping down on his metal armor with bone-crushing force.

Time stopped for a moment. She was distantly aware of several screams in the air, though she couldn't tell from whose lips they fell. She heard the teeth scraping Alistair's metal armor, the sound of the teeth puncturing the metal before sinking into his flesh. Her feet would not cooperate, would not get her there  _now_ , which was what she needed, and she watched helplessly as Alistair was thrashed from side to side, painfully slowly with her heightened senses, each pass pressing those teeth down a little further into his armor, his flesh.

Suddenly Morrigan was in the air, Sten's sword, which she had retrieved from where it had fallen moments earlier, in her hands. The witch found a perch out of sheer stubborn will, it seemed, and drove the weapon into the dragon's eye. It freed Alistair, releasing a stream of fire and shaking Morrigan free, the sword staying put in its eye. It pawed at its faced a few times, unable to dislodge the weapon. She watched it slowly begin to sway, its injuries apparently too much for it.

Finally,  _finally_ , she was close enough to do something. Torn armor and clothing hanging from her, she leapt once more, driving her sword, which looked too small to accomplish anything against such a beast, between its eyes with a guttural howl of rage. The sword found a weak spot between two scales, and her magic and rage-fueled strength drove it in to the hilt.

She was thrown from it in its death throes, her blade somehow coming with her. She felt her power coursing through her, demanding she act, but for the first time she was able to tame it, purposely narrowing her access to that well of power in her very core. It waned slowly, not suddenly, leaving her able to remain conscious as her body adjusted to the loss of power. Or, at least, she would have remained conscious had she not at that moment slammed into the side of the mountain.

* * *

Solona regained consciousness after an indeterminate amount of time. Her vision clarified slowly, blurry white lines resolving themselves into the stars in the night sky. She tried to turn her head, but immediately regretted it, crying out as a sharp pain shot down the back of her neck.

Thinking hard for a moment, she found her center, calling the power forth once more. It began to heal her wounds immediately, and within a few moments she could feel her hand, which she hadn't even been aware she couldn't feel. She clenched it around the hilt of her sword, amazed once more that she had kept it while being thrown from a  _dragon's head_. She moved her head to study the weapon while the power coursed through her, and was astonished at what she saw.

The sword was  _glowing_. Much how she was told her eyes glowed. She heard its song,  _felt_  it hum through her, singing in beautiful harmony with the power that she allowed free reign. And as it sang, her body sang back, the power spilling over into the weapon. She probed it, reaching her senses out through her physical connection with the weapon, seeing again that it was actually  _storing_  the power, her connection with the weapon allowing it to act as a conduit much as her body did.

Perhaps the weapon tempered the power somehow?

She was pulled abruptly from her probing of the weapon by her own memories. An image of Alistair being pulverized by dragon's teeth flashed before her eyes, and she sat up, allowing the power to cease, noting in the back of her mind how easy doing so now was.

Her first impression upon standing and beginning to walk was that she had been thrown  _far_. She sheathed her sword and broke into a jog, feeling almost like normal, with just some residual soreness in her neck and right arm – the side that had hit the rock. In the distance, she could see her companions finding their feet, examining the hulking mountain of dead dragon, and Morrigan and Wynne crouched over something.

 _Alistair! Maker, I hope he's okay_.

He couldn't leave her alone. They were a pair. They were the only two Grey Wardens left in Ferelden, linked by a special bond, a singular understanding of their tainted blood. But more than that, they were now the most unlikely of friends, apostate mage and templar recruit, one raised in the Circle, the other by the Chantry. If he died, Solona wasn't sure what she'd do with herself.

 _Of course you know. You will continue. Your duty does not die until_ _ **you**_ _die_.

The words echoed in Duncan's voice, in Irving's voice, in Wynne's. Even her Aunt Leandra was in there, reminding her of her purpose, her duty. And then Leliana's voice joined it, just as the real Leliana noticed her coming their way, head turning up from what looked to be a frantic search for something.  _For me_ , Solona realized, and put on a burst of speed, nearly crashing into the woman as she took the redhead into her arms, lifting her bodily off her feet.

"I'm so glad you are all right!" Leliana exclaimed, her voice muffled by Solona's shirt.

"Me, too," Solona said with a slight smirk, setting the bard upon her feet once more. They stared into each other's eyes for a moment. Leliana still looked sad, her eyes shadowed by grief and guilt, but she was still far more herself than she had been before.

"We'll have to replace your armor," she said instead, fingering the tattered leather that was the result of the arcane warrior and the dragon both. The wounds underneath had healed, but Solona's torn clothing, including the hanging strips of leather armor, were stained with her own blood. And they no longer functioned properly.

"It's fine. It can wait," Solona responded, removing Leliana's hands and interlacing their fingers. "I need to check on everyone."

They found Wynne pouring healing energies into Alistair's body. He lay broken and bleeding upon the stone near the dragon's head, but still alive, his chest rising and falling noticeably with his breathing. Somebody had removed his armor chest plate, and he lay unconscious. Morrigan kneeled next to the senior enchanter, one hand upon the mage's shoulder, appearing in a trance. Solona knew at once that she was concentrating on transferring her magical power to Wynne for her use, and immediately kneeled next to her fellows.

Summoning her energies, she laid both hands upon Wynn's back and willed a connection with Wynne so her power was available to her mentor. She tried to ignore the puddle of Alistair's blood beneath him as she found her a calm place inside herself. She would do him no good by worrying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~Ducks head~ Please don't hurt me for that cliffhanger...
> 
> Some thoughts to share. First off, as Diablo Kades likes to point out to me, I for once didn't gravely injure Zevran! Instead it's Alistair. It was actually indirectly her idea, though. It seems like most people who involve Alistair and Morrigan (if you didn't that's where I was headed, now you know - I don't think it's a big surprise) have Alistair save her in some way. Well, bitches, I'm having Morrigan save him, because I can! She is badass, and I loved the image of her crying out and jumping into the air with a sword that's the size of her, not even bothering with magic. So there.
> 
> Second, I really want to see what y'all think about Leliana and Solona's scene. The "Make me feel good" is actually something I remember from the move "Monster's Ball," but it seemed apt here. And it just felt like getting her out of her head would be useful. She's not all the way better. That takes time. But I feel like getting angry is far more useful than being guilty. Anger riles people up, calls them to action. Guilt makes us lack any motivation. Plus, you know, fiery redheads and their tempers (I hear). ;)
> 
> Also, random note on this, I did some (very unofficial) research into how women handled menstruation during the middle/dark ages, and apparently they used linens and such as both pads and as tampons. Apparently. So that's where that musing comes from. I just... I want my story to include all of it, from the food poisoning someone new to "travel food" would likely get, to the fact that women menstruate and have to deal with that, to the fact that having sex on your period is messy. As the saying goes, "everybody poops" - including all of my characters. It's something I wonder about when I read fantasy, so I wanted to include some of the less pleasant aspects of life in this story.


	21. Interlude

_The world swims around him. He floats in a pleasant place, unsure if he is in air or water. He takes in a breath – must be air. He can’t see anything, but it doesn’t alarm him. If he chooses to move, that is the sensation he gets. If he chooses to stay still, then he feels as though he is floating._

_After a time, a sound starts to come to him. It is a familiar sound, a low, feminine voice that sounds of music. He decides to go in search of it._

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Come, Morrigan. Of course you know what I am speaking of. You are the most self-aware woman I have ever met."

Her voice got low. "I saved one of only two Gray Wardens, nothing more."

Zevran's voice simply sounded amused. "Yes, indeed. I suppose your display of strength and  _altitude_  was solely based on your fear for Ferelden should the warden die."

Morrigan's voice took on a tone of pure acid. "Think what you wish,  _elf_. I owe you no explanation for my actions."

Alistair cracked open his eyes just as Morrigan turned to check on him, Zevran standing behind her with a slight smirk on his face. The former templar’s vision took a moment to adjust, and as his eyes focused, he saw a sight he was sure he'd never see in all his life: Morrigan wore a look of  _worry_ on her face. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a groan came out, one that was prolonged when the pain hit him.  _Maker, what happened to me?_

The look on Morrigan's face switched briefly to relief, and then to amusement. "If you are wondering what occurred to make you feel as you do, rest assured that it was very heroic. 'Twas also very  _stupid_. You tried to take on a High Dragon with only shield and sword." She paused for a moment, a smirk playing on her face before she clarified. "You failed."

He let out a laugh, ending in a coughing fit. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders to help him sit up. He was momentarily stunned by her  _helping_ him, before being overwhelmed by her proximity: her scent, of herbs and leather and linen; her warmth, radiating off of her like a furnace; the press of her bosom against his shoulder, giving him the briefest glimpse of her cleavage before he remembered himself and averted his gaze.

His vision swam only a little once he was sitting. She offered him water, passed to her by the elf, which he drank gratefully. The tickle in his throat was satisfied, and he found he was able to speak. "I remember the dragon," he explained, his voice hoarse, "but I don't remember what happened to me. Why does my whole body hurt?"

Morrigan's brow creased momentarily, as though she were debating something internally. "Solona was caught in the creature's jaw. She freed herself, but you did not realize that she would, I think, and you charged it. It caught you instead. Your body hurts because your armor was crushed into you. The creature's teeth punctured in several places. You were a bloody mess when it finally released you."

He chuckled slightly. "I can always trust you to give it to me straight, Morrigan."

She scoffed. "You are a grown man. 'Tis unnecessary to coddle you."

He sighed, still smiling. "I agree. Though most people would have softened the explanation anyway, if only to make it less unpleasant for themselves."

Exasperation crossed over her face. " _I_  am not  _most people-_ "

Zevran chuckled. "That might be the most factual statement you have ever made, Morrigan."

Alistair put his hand on her arm, silencing the protest that was on the tip of her tongue. "I know, Morrigan. And believe it or not, I'm glad for it." He followed her gaze to where his hand rested, releasing her as soon as he realized that the contact probably made her uncomfortable – she _had_  talked about how all the touching people did unnerved her. Really, it was amazing that she had allowed that small amount of contact at all, her touching him to help him up an even larger mystery. His gaze continued along his arm to his own torso, noticing that he was shirtless. He lifted the blanket over his lap curiously, discovering that they had completely disrobed him. He replaced the blanket in a rush, looking up with a blush on his face – Wynne, Morrigan, and Solona had all likely seen him! – to discover Morrigan smirking at him. The grin on Zevran's face, along with the pressure against his hands, made it clear he was unsuccessful at hiding his growing manhood.

_I’m not even aroused!  This thing has a mind of its own, and its own sense of humor.  Maker help me…_

The mage was standing without another word. Alistair couldn't be sure, but he thought she moved with a somewhat exaggerated sway to her hips as she walked away from him. It affected him in altogether embarrassing ways.

"She is certainly  _all_  woman," Zevran commented, watching her right alongside the warden. "And she knows it, too."

Alistair knit his brows. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Zevran shook his head. "Nothing." He kneeled next to Alistair. "You performed a mighty feat, indeed, warden. People like Leliana will sing of it for years: a templar taking down a high dragon so the world could experience the Ashes. Well done, my friend – the ladies will surely be lining up to thank you, whether or not they are devout believers." He winked.

"I… I… I don't want that!"

The elf chuckled. "No? A shame. Perhaps I can help take away some of the attention. I was there under the dragon, after all. Surely I can claim some of the fame? In fact, I was nearly crushed when Solona immobilized it. Quite the clever idea she had."

"It was. But then she got herself snatched up by that dragon…" The memory made Alistair’s heart pound, watching that giant creature close its mouth around her and begin shaking her like a dog shakes a bone. His heart had fallen down through his stomach, and he had unwisely drawn his sword to try to free her, forgetting that she was channeling her arcane power and likely would free herself very quickly. Just as he  _did_  realize it, he found the dragon bearing down upon him. A terrible pressure overtook him, and then he had awoken here, terribly sore but alive.

"Ah, yes, rushing to rescue the damsel in distress. But then  _you_  were the one in distress."

"Um… how, uh… well… How was I freed?"

"Ah, yes, my favorite part!" Zevran announced, eyes twinkling mischievously in the firelight. "A damsel, if you could ever call her that." At Alistair's likely blank look, he continued with a heavy sigh. "Morrigan, the Witch of the Wilds, rescued  _you_ , fair templar."

"She… _what_?"

"Yes, I agree – unbelievable. And yet, it is true – I saw it with my own eyes." Zevran scooted around, getting a little more comfortable. "She took Sten's sword and summoned some energy I didn't know she possessed – likely some spell – leapt into the air, and drove it through the dragon's skull." Alistair guffawed. "Indeed, it was quite a sight, though I am sad to say I was unable to see up her skirts."

Alistair couldn't help it; he laughed, immediately choking and spluttering before it devolved into a coughing fit once more. Zevran clapped him on the back a few times, offering him water again once he had his breath back.

"Oh, Maker, I hurt," he groaned.

"You should milk it for all it is worth," Zevran informed him. "See if you can't bed one or two of the ladies with us, out of pity for you, if nothing else."

"But, that's awful! Besides," Alistair continued, sure in his logic. "The only ones not involved with  _each other_  are Wynne and Morrigan."

"You say that as though they are obviously repugnant," Zevran countered, winking as he elaborated. "Wynne is a magnificent example of aging well, with supple breasts and a firm bottom, walking tall toward her twilight." Alistair felt his face heat thinking of the description of someone who had come to occupy the role of mother in his life. "And Morrigan is a voluptuous snake, as likely to bite you as she is to kiss you. What a wonderful risk to take, no? Life is nothing without risks."

Alistair's eyebrows knit, his eyes narrowed. "I… stop doing that!"

Zevran feigned innocence. "Doing what, warden?"

"So casually treating our friends as though they're only pieces of meat!"

Zevran scrutinized him. "You are not like most other men, Alistair."

Alistair's eyes remained narrowed. "Oh?"

The elf nodded. "Yes. Most men are not this earnest – when out of the company of women, most men will devolve into lecherous buffoons, boasting and laughing and carrying on like virgin teenage boys considering their first trip to the brothel. But you do not. I respect that." He paused, getting to his feet again. "But I do think it would be okay to allow yourself your attractions, and to talk about them with someone. Especially when the one you've taken a liking to is also attracted to you."

Alistair didn't get a chance to ask him what he meant, as the elf chose that moment to turn around and walk away.  _What does he mean? Someone's attracted to me?_

_Balls. Now I'm just going to be wondering…_

Alistair would be fine, but they had to rest for at least a day, more likely two, before he would be well enough to defend himself if he needed to. Wynne was exhausted, but the extra energy Morrigan and Solona had supplied, along with their dwindling supply of lyrium, had helped her take care of him fully before she absolutely  _needed_  to rest. The transferring of magic was not an easy thing, leaving a mage utterly exhausted and unable to defend herself. So it wasn't a move many tried often, as most mages usually needed their energy for their own spell casting. In fact, the situation that most often required such drastic, risky measures was in healing someone of grievous injury.  And that was exactly what they had done, for one of only two Grey Wardens who had been on the brink of death; it was worth the risk. It had left the other two mages completely depleted, however, and now Wynne watched as they rested, eating some of the stew Leliana had made for them all.

It had been several hours since the end of their encounter with the high dragon. Alistair had awoken once, directly after she had finished with him, Morrigan and Zevran tending to his needs before he drifted off to sleep once more. Sten had gone about butchering what parts of the dragon he could, salvaging teeth for trophies, scales for the later making of armor or weapons, and blood for the creation of powerful potions. He seemed particularly jubilant, if Sten could _ever_ be called jubilant.  Wynne suspected that killing a high dragon was a particularly potent sign of strength and battle prowess, and knowing what she knew of him, that would rate highly among his people.

The meat Wynne had deemed edible, and it was now bubbling in the pot over the fire they had built back up inside the cavern. Zevran had taken the dog and walked back to the entrance of the temple to inform Genetivi that he should make his way back to the village, as the party would not be back for several days at least.

"This is actually quite tasty," the enchanter remarked, taking another bite of the impromptu stew.

"Yes, I agree. We are lucky these people had taken shelter up here," Leliana replied, replacing the pot lid and setting the wooden spoon aside. "I was surprised to find such an array of spices, but delighted.” The bard had been very quiet since her ordeal that morning. Wynne didn't blame her – if _she_ had killed an innocent child, she would be wracked with guilt, as well. But something had happened several hours earlier to bring Leliana from almost catatonic unless enemies were around, to simply a duller version of her normally cheery self, like a banked lantern. She knew it had something to do with the shouting she heard from her and Solona, and suspected it also involved whatever muffled whimpers she'd heard after that.

_Ah, to be young and foolishly in love…_

Despite her initial disapproval of their relationship, Wynne couldn't help but smile. Young love was a marvelous thing, and that they could find it amidst such danger and potential sorrow was magical. Perhaps Leliana was right – perhaps the Maker really did work through his creations. What else could explain these two finding each other?

" _I_  was delighted to find such soft bedrolls," Wynne answered the bard, eyeing a free one longingly. But she was on watch, such as it was, while Sten, Alistair, and the other two mages slept after their ordeal. She, too, was exhausted, but knew she would rather sleep straight through, so had elected to remain awake an extra few hours in order to accomplish that. Perhaps Zevran would take pity on her when he came back and take over for her? Or perhaps Max?

They sat in companionable silence for a time, Wynne finishing her stew, just thinking about pulling out her healer’s journal and adding that dragon meat was actually quite tasty, when Zevran put in an appearance.

"Did I miss anything?" he asked immediately. Wynne watched as Max bounded forward, nearly knocking Leliana over in his excitement. The dog had clearly accepted the bard as his master's mate, allowing her to command him almost as Solona did. The mage would always be his master, but Leliana occupied a special place in his dog's hierarchical view of his world.

"No, nothing has occurred while you were gone," Leliana answered him, standing up from greeting the giant dog.

"Ah well. At least there is food."

Wynne lifted an eyebrow. "You are disappointed? Surely we've had enough action even for _you_ today, Zevran."

The elf chuckled as he accepted a bowl from Leliana. "Plenty of action, it is true. But when I was with the Crows, every moment of my day was a potentially life-and-death moment. Usually the kind made by intrigue." He took a test-taste, nodding his approval to Leliana before seating himself between the two women.

"Have either of you ladies decided what trophy you will keep?"

"Trophy?" Wynne knit her brows. "From the dragon? We're to keep trophies?"

"Sure," Zevran answered before taking another bite. "How else will people in taverns know what tremendous deeds you have done? You took out a high dragon, Wynne. Just imagine how many handsome Orlesian whores you can bed after boasting about  _that_."

Wynne felt her face heat immediately. She should have known he would not leave that be. It was a fun night, but she was starting to think it was not worth it; it had been  _weeks_  and she was still getting teasing comments from the nosy Antivan elf.

"Wait," Leliana said, and Wynne almost groaned. "Surely you're joking?"

"Did Wynne not tell you? We stayed at the Pearl in Denerim," the elf explained jovially. "She took a handsome, dark-haired Orlesian to her bed. Morrigan took a handsome elven man – who was not me, alas - and Alistair lost his virginity to a rather beautiful and buxom blonde woman. It was all almost sweet, in its own way." He tipped back the bowl to finish his meal, holding it out for more when he was through.

Wynne's heart began to pound at his explanation. "Of course I didn't tell her that! It is  _rude_  and  _uncouth_  to talk about such things. Though, given the amount of boasting you do, I am unsurprised you either didn't know or don't care about what is appropriate."

"No need to get defensive, Wynne. I was merely stating facts. The bard and her warden also discovered each other during that stop. I see no reason why we should not all be aware."

Leliana answered before Wynne could argue. "I agree with Wynne, Zevran – a lady never reveals her secrets." She paused, then grinned. “Unless doing so gives her the upper hand, of course.”

Zevran chuckled, but what she said seemed to leave him thoughtful. He studied her a moment before looking to Wynne. The mage wasn't sure what he saw in her face, but his amused expression softened some. "Perhaps you are right. I apologize, my dear Wynne. I sought only to tease, not to make uncomfortable. Perhaps I forget sometimes that life among lecherous men is very different from good women, yes?"

Wynne frowned a moment. She thought of what his life must have been like, in his apartment in the leather tanning district of Antiva City, with four other men sharing one bedroom, getting what love he could from prostitutes and the seductions he performed in the name of his occupation. Thinking about that life, and how he had never been around a sincere person, softened her heart, and she smiled a little, nodding and murmuring that he was forgiven.

She saw the look Leliana gave her, a look that asked what might be developing between her and the elf, but she refused to meet it.  _She_  didn't know what was developing, and had no interest in discussing it with the bard, or anyone else, for that matter. She begged out of watch not long after, going to sleep with her thoughts.

"Wynne, I… I wanted to thank you."

"There is no need, Alistair," the mage replied warmly, patting his arm. She had just finished checking him out, declaring him fit to begin travel once more on the morrow, if he avoided straining himself for the rest of the day. "I couldn't just leave you there to bleed, now could I?"

"Nonetheless, I really appreciate it." He was sitting on his bedroll, to which he'd been confined since they got him inside the cavern, getting up only to relieve himself – usually with someone's help. He would be allowed to finally wash himself the next morning, before donning his armor and embarking on (hopefully) the final leg of this accursed journey through the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

She smiled warmly at him. "Well, you are most welcome, young man. Though it was not I alone who healed you. Morrigan and Solona both provided me with the energy required for such grievous injury. And did you know Morrigan is the one responsible for the dragon releasing you?"

He nodded his head. "Yes. Zevran told me."

Wynne shook her head. "And I'm sure he found some way to make it lecherous."

Alistair smiled, shaking his head. "He sure did. Something about not being able to see up her skirt."

Wynne sighed. "I suppose if he wasn't feeling up to those comments, we should worry something is wrong." She began gathering up her herbs, readying herself to leave the man's side. Before she could get up, though, he stopped her with a question.

"How do you know if someone likes you?"

She looked sidelong at him. "Come again?"

His skin reddened. "It's just… something Zevran said; about attraction, and me being attracted to someone who's attracted to me. I couldn't figure out what he meant at first, but I've had some time to think…" He shrugged, the flush to his face deepening.

"I… do not know, Alistair," she said honestly. "I am hardly the person to ask about a  _woman_  being attracted to me." She set her things down, settling next to him. She studied him a moment. She just might know who he was talking about…

Here he was, the bastard son of a king, a virgin until only a few weeks ago, raised by the Chantry, a templar recruit. He had no siblings to tease him, no mother to be a source of tenderness, no father to educate him in being a man. Perhaps they should have a talk?

Yes, they should. It had been far too long since she'd been able to get some good-natured teasing in.

"Alistair, we should have a word."

"What is it?"

"Now that you've experienced…" She couldn't do it with a straight face, but the look on his face, so confused, befuddled, was just adorable. She chuckled. "You should know where babies come from."

The reaction was hilarious. He spluttered, became red in the face, couldn't seem to breathe, and his words seemed to abandon him. She couldn't help it – she pushed onward, a smile on her face as she winked at him.

"I know the Chantry says you dream about your babies and the good Fade spirits take them out of the Fade and leave them in your arms." Alistair became redder in the face. Wynne had a very hard time not laughing as she continued. "But that's not true. Actually, what happens is that when a girl and a boy really love each other – or at least squirm around together without their clothes on-"

Alistair finally found his voice. "Andraste's flaming sword! I know where babies come from!"

She feigned surprise. "Do you?! Do you really?"

"I certainly  _hope_  so!"

She chuckled. "Awww, look. You're all red and mottled. How cute."

His eyes narrowed, a slight smile curling his lips. "You did that on  _purpose_."

"Now, now, Alistair. Why would I do such a thing?"

"Because you're wicked," he stated matter-of-factly. "That frail old lady act? I'm so not fooled." He narrowed his eyes at her again. "I'm onto you now. You like to tease."

She chuckled once more. "Can you blame me? The shade of red you turn is highly entertaining – and will show up less and less the more experience you get."

His expression grew confused once more. "Wait. How do you know..."

"That you were a virgin? I hardly needed to be told." At his confused expression she explained. "I'm old enough to know when someone is a virgin or not. You weren't secretive about your tryst at the Pearl – none of us were – but I still knew it was your first time." She paused, laughing internally at the shade of red he'd turned once more. "She seemed like a lovely girl, Alistair. I'm sure she was kind, and taught you what she could?"

He swallowed. "Yes, uh, she was… or, she did… both of those things."

She patted his arm. "Good. Then I'm sure you'll know what you're getting into should you decide to brave our Witch of the Wilds."

She got up then, leaving him gaping at her as she walked away.

"Why didn't you try channeling your arcane energy into it?"

"I suppose I was worried," Solona answered, a little hesitant. "I'm not accustomed to having much control. What if I decided to channel it into Wynne, and I lost myself? What if it's not a type of power that can be shared like that? It wasn't the right time to experiment."

Alistair shifted on his bedroll. "I suppose I can see that. I was just wondering, because you seemed to have ended your self-imposed ban on using going there."

"It's just… almost killing Zevran scared the hell out of me, Alistair. I recognized him and it still didn't register that I should be careful, that I should  _stop_. Archers don't fire into a crowd without being sure of a shot. It should be no different for me." She shifted, sitting next to him.

Alistair was quiet a moment before responding. "I can see how that would be a problem." He looked up at her. "What about that sword? You said it helps you control things?"

She nodded. "Yes. I don't know what it is, what's so special about it. But it isn't a normal sword, certainly. It allows me to channel the magic _through_  it."

He knit his brows. "But weren't you already doing that? I've seen you shoot flame and lightning through your regular sword."

Solona shook her head. "No, this is different. Then I was using my weapon just like my staff – to direct a spell. This weapon holds the actual _energy_. It… allows me to focus. Like I'm not holding so much power inside of me. It stores it, somehow. I can't really describe it. But it is different."

Alistair continued to knit his brows. "Didn't you say the warrior you fought was able to manipulate your spells?"

Solona sat up straight. "You're right! He caught the electricity and sent it back at me! Like I did with Morrigan in Redcliffe, only he did it with his weapon!"

"Was that something you could do before, with the sword you've been using?"

"No. I could have caught it with my body, but the blade could never have been used that way. This is… interesting."

They sat quietly for a few minutes, each thinking about the implications of what they'd discovered. It had been a day since they'd faced the dragon. Alistair was feeling much better, and more well-rested than he had felt since Denerim. But he was starting to worry about how much time had elapsed since they left Redcliffe – almost six weeks, now. A lot of things would be better when they were finally done here. Eamon would be healed, they could all rest in a real bed, and maybe Leliana would be all the way better by then.

_Speaking of which…_

Finally, Alistair spoke up. "It feels like maybe we're not talking about it on purpose, but… how is Leliana? She seemed better right before the dragon."

Solona sighed. "She  _is_  better, but she's still not herself. She's still… withdrawn."

"How did you manage to get her better?"

She hesitated. "We…" Her cheeks darkened, turning a delicate shade of red under her dark complexion. Her blushes weren't really that visible, but he was up-close, and had also come to know her and what they looked like. She looked up at him to see the grin he was failing at holding back.

"Yes?" he prompted.

She smirked. "Asshole."

They both burst out laughing at that. Several of their nearby companions looked over quizzically.

"Ow!" Alistair cut off his laughing abruptly. "Don't make me do that again."

Solona snickered. "Then don't be such a  _prig_."

"Well, we all heard you provoke her. And then there was  _moaning_ \- Ow!"

Solona had smacked his arm. "Shut it, or I'll start telling everyone how you were a virgin before your little visit to the Pearl."

Alistair's jaw dropped. "How did you…?"

Solona chuckled. "Zevran let it loose to Wynne and Leliana last night. They didn't know I was still half-awake, and I heard him teasing Wynne over the  _gentleman_  she took to her bed while you were all in Denerim. Well done, by the way,” she said with a wink, then smirked, clearly not able to keep from teasing him. "Are you going to reward your knight in shining armor for saving your ass?"

His blank look just made her laugh.

"Morrigan, you dolt!"

Alistair's cheeks immediately flushed bright red. "What? Maker, no!"

"Why not? She's a beautiful woman, and clearly cares enough to save you from being mangled by a dragon."

He shook his head. "The thought of her in bed…"

"Is amazing? Everything you dream of? Come on, Alistair, she's scary, but that would be half of the fun, wouldn't it? Like taming a lion? Except probably without the 'taming' part…"

He just stared, bewildered.

Solona snorted. "Fine, fine. Leave your rescuer un-rewarded."

"I still can't believe she did that,” he said after a moment. “Why do you think she did?"

"Who can say?” Solona said, shrugging. “You  _are_  one of only two Gray Wardens in Ferelden. Maybe she just wanted to make sure to have someone to bicker with? The verbal sparring the two of you share is legendary – though somewhat lackluster of late. I'm just glad she's leaving Leliana alone…"

Alistair shook his head. "Sometimes I think I liked it better when you didn't like me. All this teasing is going to get old."

Solona chuckled. "Too late now, my friend. Too late now."

Alistair hissed and groaned.

"You sure you're okay to do this yourself?"

He peeked his eyes open to look at Solona, who was helping him with his armor. "Perhaps I was being a bit optimistic in what I could handle," he admitted, abandoning his attempt to do his own straps. "But what if there's more? I can't remain unarmored if there's another fight."

"Wynne says you'll be fine in the armor once it's on. It's just twisting to reach the hard spots that's tricky. So let me help you."

He dropped his hands. "Very well."

As she got to work, occasionally asking him where the buckle for a particular strap was, Alistair couldn't help but think back on awakening to Morrigan's presence. The brief moment of vulnerability he witnessed, her  _worry_  over him, was incredibly confusing. Wynne and Zevran had told him of how Morrigan had forced the dragon to release him by sticking Sten's sword through its eye, kneeling to help keep him alive as soon as it was clear that Solona had slayed the beast. The witch had completely depleted her strength so that Wynne, a mage she reviled, could heal him. And then that smirk and the swaying of those hips once he was awake! He was utterly confused.

Arousal hit him with little warning. He tried to think of something else, grateful that his chest plate was in place to hide the evidence for him. He thought instead of Solona, currently strapping him into his armor. It was an almost intimate act, though so very far from sexual when she did it. It was like they were brothers? Not that he knew what  _that_  was like. His only true brother never even knew they were related. But Alistair knew now what it was to be undressed by someone, and this was not that feeling. While his and Solona’s relationship definitely held affection, there wasn’t an ounce of sexual attraction, on either of their parts. They were friends, bound by the taint in their blood and the loss of their fellows, by the knowledge they shared as tools of the Chantry, and by their shared need to  _end_  the archdemon.

These thoughts brought him to the correct frame of mind, calming his body and making it easier for him to have Solona so close comfortably. It took a bit more explaining where all the buckles were and how they worked, but within ten minutes Solona had all of his equipment strapped to him.

Once the armor was on, he drew his sword and shield and did some practice maneuvers. For the most part, he had a full range of motion, only truly having trouble or experiencing pain if he twisted all the way around. As that move was dangerous at the best of times – it made for a very weak position, no matter how strong the person attempting it was – he should be fine. And they could not afford to delay any longer.

Once the whole party was armed and armored, supplies either stowed on their persons or in the store room, they ventured out onto the plateau once more, passing the hulking form of the dead dragon and heading toward to structure across the way.


	22. The Gauntlet

"I bid you welcome, Pilgrim."

The spirit was old. He had come with the Ashes of the Prophet, standing guard over this threshold for time untold. It had been many years since he had allowed anyone through, since anyone had been worthy of even that. The intentions of those who lived in the village below, the descendants of those he had called friend and more, were evil. They had become corrupted through their isolation, madness running rampant through the lot of them. Even the strong bloodlines of the arcane warriors had been polluted by this madness.

An arcane warrior was before him now, different from those in the village below, yet oh-so-similar to those he had known during his time with Andraste. This warrior had slayed the last from the descendants of the Disciples, in fact. And she was powerful, a Grey Warden, bearing the taint in her blood. If she made it through the Gauntlet, she would learn much of her heritage, about the role the arcane warriors played in the Exalted March, in the bringing of blood magic to Thedas. They all would. And they would be able to bring the history back out to the world, along with the knowledge and location of the Ashes.

The spirit stood, as he always had, protecting the threshold to the Gauntlet. The eight companions standing before him were a strange fellowship, but he knew instantly everything there was to know about them. The large follower of the Qun, the daughter of an old legend of the Wilds, the bard who had recently done something terrible – he knew all their histories, though he did not know what they were thinking while they did what they did.

So he asked.

"I… yes," the blonde warden answered when ased, guilt all over his face. "If Duncan had been saved, and not me, everything would be better. If I'd just had the chance, maybe…"

The former bard's face went from deep guilt to a rebellious indignation when he told her that she had been someone special, that she might wish she were  _still_  the center of attention, positive or negative. Her answer amused him, and confirmed that her faith was unshakeable, even during her sorrow, even when accusations were being made. "You're saying I made up my vision for the attention?! I did not! I know what I believe!"

The elf displayed his customary frivolity at first, eventually hiding his discomfort under flippant irritation. "Yes. The answer is yes, if that is what you wish to know. I do regret what I did. Now move on."

The giant warrior knew himself to a fault. "I have never denied that I failed the arishok, or the Qun."

The child of Flemeth did not even allow him to question her. He knew her true intentions, but also detected that her loyalty to the Grey Wardens was true, even if her loyalty to their  _cause_  was not, and allowed her to think she could deflect him.

The oldest of the lot was wise to his ways, unconcerned that he knew their histories. "You frame the statement in the form of a question, yet you already know our answers. There is no sense in hiding, is there? You wish to know if I wonder if I am a tool of the Chantry, of the Circle? If I doubt my own wisdom? Yes, I do doubt at times. Only the fool is completely certain of himself."

Lastly, he asked the question about which he was most curious. "Do you think you failed Jowan?"

The arcane warrior took her time to answer, but ultimately gave an answer that did not surprise him, given her nature. "Yes. There must have been something more I could have done, to avoid the fate he met.  I acted for him out of anger, righteous indignation.  It was not truly for _him_."

He was satisfied. "Come, Pilgrims. You have questions of your own. Speak them now."

He spoke of the history, of bringing Andraste's holy Ashes to this resting place. He spoke of the Disciples losing their way: being swayed by the preaching's of the false prophet so many years ago, of their need for something tangible in lieu of the absent Maker and his Bride. He spoke of his sadness, of his denying them access to defile the Ashes, how he watched them all slowly go mad from generation to generation. He kept to himself that the arcane warriors slowly died out, their role in Andraste's army, their role in her teachings on magic - and the true meaning of her teachings - nearly lost forever. He kept to himself that the eight before him were the last chance for the truth to be known. They would learn it in due time, and it would be up to the faithful among them to spread the truth.

"The way is open to you. Good luck, and may you find what you seek."

* * *

"Only the faithful may enter."

Solona read from the runes over the entrance to what the Guardian had dubbed The Gauntlet.  _A rather ominous name_ , she couldn’t help thinking.

"Well, that leaves  _me_  out," Morrigan replied with a huff.

"I, as well," Sten rumbled.

Solona looked down at Max. "What about you, boy? Do you believe in Andraste?" He whimpered, looking around anxiously. "Better leave you here with Sten, just to be safe."

She looked around at the rest: Leliana, Alistair, herself, Wynne, and… "Zevran?"

The elf answered him jovially enough. "How do you think I have made it this far? I pray every seventh-day when I am in a town with a Chantry."

"That is… unexpected," Wynne murmured.

"So. The five of us, then." Solona looked to each of those who would be accompanying her to reach the Ashes. Her eyes landed on Leliana last. The bard was still subdued, guilt still playing in her eyes, but the two days spent letting Alistair heal had done her almost as much good as it had done him. She had prayed a great deal, Solona keeping a loose vigil to make sure she was undisturbed. In between, they had explored the caves, talking of this and that, mostly ignoring the thing that was haunting the redhead. The mage had removed Leliana from her withdrawn state – the rest was up to Leliana. Solona knew she couldn't  _fix_  her, not completely.  That was something Leliana must do for herself.

Seeing a spark of something in Leliana's eyes in the dim light, Solona's heart lifted a little. She took a deep breath and turned to the entrance. "Idle time is wasted time. Let's get on with it."

* * *

Leliana knew that Solona was worried about her. She just… couldn't shake what she'd done. Solona forcing her to face it had helped. The mage had clarified  _why_  Leliana was so horrified by what had happened. The bard could see that it wasn't something she had done, per se, but more something that she was forced to clean up, a mess someone else had left. But the guilt was still there, a bitter reminder of all the other terrible things she'd done at Marjolaine's behest. And it made her hate herself all over again.

She did not feel she deserved the way Solona doted upon her.

She hadn't even taken coin for the things she'd done in Orlais. She had  _reveled_  in the Game, playing it for its own sake, luxuriating in her own abilities. She had manipulated with her words and her body. Some part of her couldn't help feeling that she  _deserved_  to be marked as she was – it served as a constant reminder of all the things she'd done, how she'd used her body to ruin people's lives.

Killing the boy had not been the same, but he was so innocent. Just on the cusp of manhood, probably slated to marry a girl in the village in a year or two. She had not hesitated to save Solona injury, even though they could have likely healed the mage and saved the boy. It wasn't a sure thing, but if she'd thrown with any less accuracy, she could have knocked the boy out and hope that his knife did not pierce anything vital. But her split-second decision had instead insured both their fates: Solona had been spared any injury, and the boy was dead.

She just couldn't stop thinking about it. Solona was right, of course. It was not her fault. She was not the one who convinced the boy that attacking armed warriors with a kitchen knife was a good idea. Solona had helped her to see that she should be angry with the cultists, whom she had already helped to butcher. But the last two days had done nothing but give her time to think about it, about herself.

And she wasn't sure she liked the person she was seeing.

She was not the follower of the Maker she thought she had become. She had been trying to be pious, and thought she was doing a decent job of honestly repenting of her ways and making up for the things she'd done in her short time in the world. But at the first opportunity of a moral dilemma, she'd taken the easy way out. A small voice persisted in telling her that it was not evil to save the woman she could now admit she was quickly falling in love with. But it was a quiet voice, often drowned out by her guilt. It was loudest, the guilt quietest, when she lay in Solona's arms, feeling her warmth, her head rising and falling with the mage's breathing.

But then that… spirit spoke of her faith like that, and she couldn't help but get defensive. She didn't like the attention in the Chantry, dammit! But at the same time, she wouldn't relent and profess the same faith as those around her. Perhaps it was because she had spent her entire adult life as a bard doing and saying what others wanted of her. She refused to do so in the Chantry.

_Or perhaps_ , the same small voice spoke now,  _it is because he was right. You **did**  fear fading into obscurity in tiny Lothering, never known by another soul ever again._ The voice was right. As much as she feared being found out for what she'd been, she also feared the prospect of never letting anyone inside her defenses again, even as she made sure no one ever did.

Then Solona had completely melted those defenses by simply being _her_. If Leliana had not been so close to Solona, would that boy have died? Would she have been better able to make a decision that would have saved more people? Was Wynne not right, then, in her assertion that having to choose between your love and everyone else was an impossible choice to face? In this case, saving Solona was the right choice, as she was one of only two Gray Wardens in a country facing a Blight. But what of Solona's choices?

Leliana did not have the answers. She only knew that it all combined to make her feel slightly ill, and more guilty than she'd ever felt before, even when contemplating her life as a bard while with Mother Dorothea.

She tried to shake it off, to focus, as she stepped through the threshold to The Gauntlet behind the two wardens.

* * *

The spirits revealed the history of Andraste's Exalted March on Tevinter. One by one, the ghost of a key player revealed their role in her demise, whether directly or indirectly.

They learned of Andraste's love for music and singing, and how the Maker first chose her because of her gift for song. They learned about the premonition that Andraste's own mother had, and how she could do nothing to stop her daughter's fate. The ghost of Hessarian's wife spoke of her wish for vengeance, to show the Imperium's strength and the weakness of the "false" prophet. They learned the truth about the Dalish elves aligning themselves with the Maker's Bride against the Imperium, choosing to ally themselves with "the enemy of their enemy." Andraste's earthly husband betrayed her out of jealousy, but mercy was shown by Hessarian, killing her quickly as she burned so that she would not suffer from the flames. Lastly, they learned how Andraste's army won against Tevinter, how the Maker smiled upon his earthly Bride and scorched the crops of those who had turned against Him.

Then Solona was suddenly faced with Jowan. Her anger flared up inside of her when she saw him. Intellectually she knew he was not real, that the magic of this holy place, where the Veil was very thin, put him in front of her because the Guardian had chosen to focus on that part of her past. And it was an incredibly important part of her past, to be certain, her friendship with him leading her to be taken from the Tower with Duncan. But her anger with him had not died. He had been her brother in all but blood, her last bit of family, and he had betrayed her worse than her blood family, who turned her into the templars.

His first question when she came into the hall enraged her.

"Have fun with the riddle game?"

"What?  _That's_  what you have to say?"

"I know you're angry with me, Solona. You have every right to be."

Solona narrowed her eyes. "You're not Jowan. And even if you were, I have nothing left to say to him."

"Indeed. I am not him. I am your guide. You will bring two others with you. The other two will go on their own quest."

He didn't speak like Jowan, even if he had the man's voice. It was both disconcerting and comforting, as his presence had always been a comfort until their last encounter. His directions were a puzzle, though.

"I am to bring two people with me? Why must we split up?"

He smiled. "All will be revealed."

She raised an eyebrow. "You already know who will come with me, don't you?" He nodded. "And so the other two have their own journey?"

"Yes. I will guide them in another form."

Solona thought for a moment. "No harm will come to them?"

"Violence begets violence. You will only come to harm if you bring it here with you."

“And who will be accompanying me?”

Jowan’s eyes landed on Leliana. “The wardens will accompany _you_ , child.”

Solona was confused, but she moved beside her lover.  “I’m with you, Leliana.”

Zevran piped up before Leliana could say anything. "This should be interesting. I have had a distinct lack of mystery and intrigue in my life as of late."

Wynne sighed dramatically. "Ever the impudence, Zevran."

He chuckled, prompting Solona to grin as she looked back to the specter of Jowan. "Lead on, Spirit. Let us see what this trial is."

* * *

Zevran watched the two wardens and the bard be swallowed by the blackness inside the doorway, following their Guide over the threshold. He didn't know what he expected, but it wasn't what happened – nothing. Nothing happened. He and Wynne simply remained in the hallway between one room and the next.

"What do you suppose we are to do?" Wynne asked him, looking around at the walls, the ceiling. He was struck by how enticing the curve of her throat was as it disappeared into the collar of her robes.

"I have no idea, my dear Wynne." She had protested the use of him calling her this only a few times before she either gave up or got used to it. He supposed he should have respected her wishes, but he was becoming uncomfortably aware of how true the endearment was. At first, he'd thought his attempts to seduce her had been merely his feverishness after battle and heavy injury at Redcliffe. But then he found he was still drawn to her once he was well again. He'd written it off as sexual attraction, then, something he was quite accustomed to, trying only half-heartedly to seduce her, brushing off her moral questions with talk of her bosom, knowing it irritated her to no end.

And then that day several weeks before had come, when he had found himself prying into her past, wishing to learn more. A tiny, stubborn voice inside of him had confessed that he wanted to make her feel better, that he cared about her in a way he had not done since Rinna. It had both terrified him and thrilled him, making his heart pump wildly whenever he thought of the possibilities.

That moment when he thought she might kiss him had both thrilled him and scared him more than anything he'd ever experienced in his life – and he had just tried to skewer a dragon with a short sword. He'd desperately wanted her to, images bombarding him of the feel of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her warm, wet center surrounding him. And, for the first time since Rinna, he'd looked forward to  _after_ : to lying upon her bosom and telling her of his life, something he had never shared with anyone; to making love until they grew bored, and then listening while she shared all about _her_ life; to knowing that there would be someone for whom he cared dearly waiting for him when night enveloped the world.

It scared the shit out of him, quite frankly.

And yet he couldn't shake it.

So he had handled himself with his usual sarcasm, unable to ignore it, or her, and yet unable to act, knowing that if anything were to happen, _she_  would have to initiate – she would not think him serious, would think he aimed merely to seduce, and he really could not blame her. This would be the only thing he was ever serious about in his life. Her, and Rinna.

Rinna, who had ended so spectacularly poorly. And he did not bear his guilt well. It did not go away, no matter how many men and women separated him from that time. He couldn't even manage to die, when that was all that he had wanted.

Wynne broke him of his reverie with a question. "Why do you look at me so?"

Her eyes were curious, but hard, her demeanor one of defensiveness. She was wary, like prey when faced with an unknown predator. It broke his heart a little, that she looked at him like that, with so much distrust.  _As if you know how to be trustworthy_ , a small voice accused him.

_I have not broken my word to the warden yet_ , he answered.

_That is something._

"I am merely appreciating a beautiful woman, in the prime of her life." He silently cursed himself when her eyes narrowed further.

"I am not another conquest for you, Zevran."

He was about to respond when a disembodied voice sounded. "You have come to the Gauntlet. Are you worthy of Andraste's Ashes?"

"That is not for us to decide," Wynne answered after a moment of thought, a moment in which Zevran could think nothing except that he was not worthy of  _her_.  _I am still going to try_.

"A wise answer, from a wise woman. What of your companion?"

A form materialized in front of them, and Zevran's heart stopped beating for a moment. He would never forget the deep red locks of hair, the longer-than-average elven ears, the deep timbre of her voice.

It was Rinna.

* * *

"What are you to show us?" Solona wanted to know.

"All will be revealed." The specter of Jowan's lips quirked up at the corners.

Solona rolled her eyes. They had walked into what she had thought would be a dark room, but had actually been a small, brightly lit room of stone.

"What are we to do here?"

The same small smile. "All will be revealed."

_That is already getting old_.

She scrutinized the room, trying to see if there was anything she'd missed on her first cursory pass. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, she heard Leliana gasp.

"Mother Dorothea?"

Solona turned her head to find Leliana wandering away from them, toward a figure in the corner of the room that had not been there a moment before. It opened its mouth to speak, its mouth moving with the words, but she could not hear it. Glancing at Alistair confirmed that he could not, either.

Leliana apparently  _could_ , however. "I do not understand, Revered Mother."

Solona knit her eyebrows. "Leliana," she murmured, starting for her lover. "Can you hear her, Leli?"

Leliana seemed unable to hear  _her_ , not reacting to Solona's words. The bard continued forward until she was next to the shadowy figure. As she walked, she transformed: her hair shortening to a ragged, uneven length; her weapons vanishing and her clothing changing to a simple, light cotton shift that went down to mid-thigh, leaving her legs otherwise bare; her skin becoming marred, covered in wounds at various stages of healing; her body becoming almost emaciated as compared with the woman Solona knew so intimately.

_This is what she was reduced to after her time with the Chevaliers…_

Leliana did not seem to notice the change in her appearance. She seemed instead to be listening to the woman in the corner. Solona tried to go to her, but she found a restraining hand on her arm. Looking up, she saw Alistair had stopped her.

"I think she needs to go through this alone," he murmured. "If that's Mother Dorothea, then that's the woman who saved her from torture, right? So maybe she can help her shake this thing with the boy." He gave her a hard, serious look. "You've done what you can for her, Solona. You've already forgiven her – we  _all_  have. But I would wager she has yet to forgive  _herself_."

Solona stopped pulling against him. "Maybe you're right." She continued to watch, helpless to support the bard in whatever encounter this would be.

* * *

The guide spoke.

"Hello Zevran."

The assassin fell to his knees in front of the elven figure before them, an almost silent gasp of surprise escaping him.

"Zevran!" Wynne knelt beside him, prepared to assess him for some weakness or injury, but the guide spoke once more, halting her inquiries.

"It is not an ailment of the body which plagues this man," it said, it's Antivan-accented voice soft like honey, yet with a hard edge underneath it that brooked no arguments.

After a moment, Zevran spoke. "My last mission before I came to Ferelden… did not go well," he started, staring up at the elven woman with terror in his large eyes.

The figure smiled. "Understatement as always, Zevran. You owe her the truth. Only then can you forgive yourself; only then can she take you seriously. You mustn't hide yourself any longer."

Wynne put her hand on his shoulder. "What does she mean, Zevran?"

He turned his head to look at her, his pupils dilated to deep pools of black, his eyes wide with fear and… something else. He looked haunted. "I… loved her, once. I  _still_  love her. And I killed her, Wynne. I killed her…"

Wynne knit her brows, forcing herself not to pull away. "I imagine there is more to explain…"

His shoulders slumped, and he looked to the ground. "Until that day I was cocky and arrogant," he started, his hands limp in his lap. "I was the best Crow in Antiva – or so I believed – and I bragged of my conquests often… both as an assassin, and as a lover."

Wynne was tempted to smile, despite the gravity of the situation. "And that is different from how you are now… how, exactly?"

He let out a hollow little chuckle. "Touché. I was often told I was insufferable… as I was being led to some gentle lady or handsome man's bed. But one of the masters grew tired of my boasting, and accepted my somewhat low bid for an incredibly difficult mark. My friend Taliesen agreed to be part of my team, as well as… Rinna." Here he stopped, looking back up at the young elven woman in front of them. She stood tall, as tall as Zevran, her head held proud as she looked down upon them.

Her lips moved, that honeyed voice speaking words that were both a joy and sorrow to hear. "You said I was a marvel. Tough, smooth, wicked, with eyes that gleamed like justice. Everything you thought you desired."

He nodded. "Yes. Rinna was special. I thought I had closed off my heart, but she held the key, melted the door and waltzed inside like it had been hers all along. It frightened me more than anything else in my life." He took a deep breath, looking back to Wynne, who still hovered, kneeling, next to him, one hand on his shoulder, the other clutching her staff. "I loved her with my whole heart, even if I did not know how to show it. It was the only time I had wanted more than a mutually pleasurable evening."

He closed his eyes and continued. "So you can imagine I was more than heartbroken when Taliesen told me she had accepted a bribe from the merchant we were sent to assassinate, that she had told him of our plan. I agreed that she needed to pay the price for that disloyalty to the Crows, and I agreed that he should kill her."

Then Wynne saw something she thought she never would see ever in her life. A tear welled in the corner of Zevran’s eye, falling ever so slowly, tracing a line down his cheek, along the edge of the curved tattoo. It was the guide who spoke, however.

"I begged him not to," she said, coming to kneel before them, eyes intent and unblinking. "On my knees, with tears in my eyes, I told him how I loved him, how I had not betrayed him or the Crows."

Zevran turned to the elven woman, eyes unabashedly leaking tears. "I laughed in your face. I told you I did not care that you loved me, that it did not matter."

The guide nodded. "And then Taleisen cut my throat. You watched as I bled, spat on me for betraying your masters. Truly it was that I had betrayed _you_ , in your mind."

"And it  _did_  matter. I had killed my love, the only person to ever show me any tenderness beyond the bedchamber, the only person to touch my heart. And then we found the truth when we finally assassinated the mark, that it was someone else who had betrayed us, not Rinna. Taleisen convinced me not to tell the Crows that Rinna died at our hands, so we returned saying she'd been a casualty of the mission. But they knew what we had done; the master who disliked me told me so to my face. He said they knew, and they didn't care. She didn't matter, and neither did I. One day my turn would come, and it would not matter, even then."

The guide reached out to touch him, cupping his chin to force him to look at her. "They told you I was nothing to them. But I was everything to _you_. And you wanted to die. You  _wanted_  your turn to come."

Zevran took a shuddering breath. "Yes." His voice sounded as though it was ripped from his throat. "After months of wallowing, I took the most dangerous mission I could, throwing myself at the Grey Wardens, hoping to die. It is only by their merciful hands that I did not perish, and my torment continues to this day, though they do not know it."

Their guide released him, standing and moving away. Zevran collapsed into silent sobs, crumbling in on himself in his sorrow. Wynne simply couldn't take it. She leaned forward, pulling his head on to her lap. She stroked his hair, murmuring close to his ears as he hugged her knees, letting him mourn in a way he was never allowed.

Wynne's heart broke for him. In his own way, he had thought he had put down a traitor, someone who had taken his tender heart, which he had only just opened up to her, and trodden on it. Instead, he learned that  _he_  was the traitor, betraying his love and spitting in her face as she died. Here was a little boy who never learned right from wrong, learning those lessons for himself the hard way instead. Now he was a man who carried those burdens with him every waking – and sleeping – moment, probably trying desperately to bury his regret in any way he could. It really was amazing he was still as put-together as he was. She could not help but to feel pity for the poor wreck of a man now clinging desperately to her, soaking her robes with his tears.

After a time, the guide spoke once more. "Do you still wish to die, Zevran?"

He lifted his head from Wynne's lap. He considered the ghost of his love for a moment before answering. "No."

"Why, Zevran? Why do you no longer wish to die?"

He sniffed, sitting up from Wynne and wiping his eyes. "I am free of the Crows. I have a purpose, a mission that will change things for the better, allowing me to atone for my sins. And…"

"Yes? The Maker's forgiveness only goes so far. He has forgiven you. Now you only have yourself, and your love, left to forgive you."

Wynne was surprised to see Zevran turn to face her. "And I care very deeply for someone. It terrifies me, but I can deny my heart no longer. It knows what it is to feel, something I never thought it would do again."

Wynne blinked stupidly. "What do you mean?"

"Wynne. My dear Wynne. I do not say the things I say in jest. You are… remarkable, and while I know I do not deserve it, I… I would have the chance to court you, if you would permit me."

His eyes shone with the tears he had shed, but they were now clear, his face and nose dry. His expression was serious – more serious than she'd ever seen him, even that night on the road when she had healed him of the injuries wrought by Solona. Wynne gazed into those nearly black eyes, and she saw only earnest affection, the haunted look, that she only now realized he'd always worn, having gone completely from those eyes.

She didn't have any words. She was afraid. How could she forgive him his sins? That poor woman, to die like that. _But look at him.  Surely he has punished himself over and over again?  Surely he would not be allowed in this holy place if forgiveness were not possible? Surely others have killed for worse reasons and felt no remorse whatsoever? If Leliana can turn her life around and be forgiven her crimes in the Orlesian court, then why not this man?_

_What if he does the same to me?  What if he feels I betrayed him in some way and ends my life?_

_I have loved a templar.  I knew very well that he had ended other mages’ lives after a failed Harrowing. And still I loved him, and still he loved me. The world is more complicated than we are taught as children._

She had felt love before, and it had backfired so marvelously. But here she was, possibly at the end of her life, helping to fight the Blight. If she would ever have a chance for love, now would be it, wouldn't it? And why not this man, this repentant sinner? Her magic did not scare him, her body did not confuse him, and her mind only seemed to intrigue him. He knew how to make her smile, and he had just bared his soul for her to see. Surely they both deserved another chance at love, at mending their mutual brokenness? And if a mage could love a bard, then why not a mage love an assassin?

Coming to her decision, she leaned forward once more, covering his lips with her own.

* * *

"Why are you so sad, Leliana?"

Leliana sank to her knees by Mother Dorothea’s side, absently adjusting her shift so that it didn't pull at her healing skin. "I have done something terrible, Revered Mother," she started, unable to meet the woman's gaze. "I… I killed a boy. A young man, really. Just on the cusp of manhood." Her eyes became moist, heat rising behind them. "He would probably have married in the next year or two, had children, worked his family's land."

"Why did you kill him, dear?"

She finally looked up into those eyes, a warm, soft brown that reflected only goodness. "He was coerced into attacking someone I… care very deeply for," she answered, haltingly, hesitating at almost every word. "In the heat of battle, I made a judgment, and threw my dagger. It was the wrong choice, and I killed an innocent."

"But he wielded a blade, did he not?"

"Yes…"

"And he was old enough to know the consequences of his actions? That people who are threatened will defend themselves? That he was fighting seasoned warriors?"

"Yes, I suppose…"

"That's right, my pet." This was a new voice. Leliana’s head snapped up to find Marjolaine walking toward her, cleavage shown to full advantage in a dress that was cut scandalously low. She stalked closer, each step a precise movement of her foot, as always. Her hands were free, but there were blades undoubtedly close-at-hand, as was her way. Her long, luscious brown hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her dark brown eyes gleamed like a predator’s in the nameless light of the room. "Assuage your guilt. You were always so good at it."

_Maker, that voice! Even now it drips with seduction…_

And yet Leliana was terrified, unable to move for the conflicting emotions her old lover presented. Here she was, in front of her old love, the one who had turned her in to the Chevaliers, who came down to the dungeons to mock her, who told her that she had called it upon herself. The pain of every lash had been multiplied tenfold in her heartbreak. Her violation had bored into her soul that much more because it had been the woman she loved with all her being who had ultimately ensured it happened to her. The cold in her cell was colder, the heat of the irons hotter, the parch in her throat burning worse, all because of this woman.

"You need not listen to her any longer, Leliana – you have accepted the Maker, and He shall protect you, has forgiven you your sins." Leliana whipped her head back around as Mother Dorothea spoke.

"You were always such a  _good_  actress, my pretty thing," Marjolaine cooed, stopping close enough for Leliana to reach out and touch her. "Now the Chantry Sister, so good and pious. But that was thrown out the door once your little tramp warden came along and swept you off your feet, didn't it?" She leaned down, getting close enough for Leliana to smell her sweet, familiar breath. "Tell me, Leliana. Is she a good fuck? Does she make you feel as good as I did?"

"You need not carry your sins with you, Leliana," Dorothea countered, a calm rock in the sea of confusion that was threatening to drown the redhead. "You are not that person any longer. You may use the skills you learned, but you now walk a path the Maker put you upon."

Marjolaine laughed, the sound low and mocking, as it always had been, even when they were lying naked together, sweaty after having fucked each other limp. "You have not  _changed_! Look at you! The first chance you have, and you take the easy choice, kill the one in your way – just as I taught you to do! You are  _ever_  the bard, Leliana. A few years of peace and quiet in this miserable country that smells of wet dog will not change what you were  _born_  to do. Neither will a few nights with that dark-skinned harlot you've taken to your bed."

Leliana's heart pounded. She hurt all over, the light too bright for her eyes, the linen shift too much for her wounds, the stone of the ground too rough for her skin. And yet she lacked the will or the strength to move, to get up from her painful position, or even to close her eyes to the harsh illumination. Marjolaine's words cut like a white-hot knife, cutting down to her very soul as if through butter.

Mother Dorothea’s words were like a balm, and Leliana tried desperately to cling to them, but she was quickly failing. The pain was too intense, too sharp to be ignored, or even to be soothed. It was quickly becoming too much. She wanted to scream.

But as she was getting ready to give in, a voice rose above everything else. "Remember your vision, Leliana! The dark clouds that you fell toward, then the rose in the garden the next morning! You  _know_  you saw it! You know it was not something you conjured in your mind!"

_Solona_.

The vision sprang to mind, and she knew the mage was right. She had pricked her finger on that rose, verifying its veracity. The mother of Lothering’s Chantry had even confirmed it was there, mystified by its presence.  _That_  was something that was not in her head. It was real, something she could touch, something that could not be warped by her guilt or her desire to make it right.

"No," she said, softly, lifting her head to Marjolaine. "People can change.  _I_ have changed. I am not perfect, but I have purpose, someone who truly cares for me, whether or not I deserve such affection, and my faith will not be shaken by the likes of  _you_." Marjolaine leaned away, a look of worry passing briefly over her face before she smiled and opened her mouth to speak once more.

Only this time Leliana wouldn't let her. Before her old bardmaster could speak, Leliana was on her feet, a dagger in her hand. She brought it to her former lover's throat and slashed it in a single movement. The woman's blood spilled forth, coating Leliana in it.

"How… could… you?" the dying bard whispered, gurgled, as her life bled away.

Leliana's gaze hardened. "I am merely using the skills you taught me. You were in my way, keeping me from myself by haunting me. Now you are not.  _Adieu_ , Marjolaine. May you know peace in the arms of the Maker."

"Sometimes, a death is necessary for the greater good to take place," Mother Dorothea intoned, remaining seated in her chair. "You did what was best at the time, Leliana. Far worse would it be for someone in your party to die, for the Blight to take Ferelden, and then all of Thedas. Far worse would it be for this place to be forever lost to the likes of Kolgrim and Eirich. The Maker may have fled His creations, leaving them to their own devices, but He still loves them, even as they flounder. You are not wrong to believe as you do – the Maker still loves His creations."

Then she was gone. Marjolaine was gone. Marjolaine's  _blood_  was gone. Instead, Leliana stood with her weapon in her hand, trembling where she stood, facing an empty corner, her appearance once more what it had been when they entered this place. Not two seconds later, she found herself engulfed in familiar strong, protective arms. She dropped her weapon, surrendering to that embrace, digging her fingers into the just-mended leathers of her lover's armor. She let herself simply  _feel_ , mourning the loss of a young, innocent boy; of an equally young, innocent Leliana; the life she'd badly wanted but never would have had with Marjolaine. The hurt was soothed, though, by the knowledge that her new life was better than either of the lives she'd lost, both of them to Marjolaine. She sighed, content for the moment to simply feel her love and know that she was not, in fact, a monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of notes here. First of all, the comment Solona makes about idle time being wasted time - the voice I chose for my warden said this ALL THE DAMN TIME. All the time. She was married to that phrase. So I thought I'd throw it in for those who would recognize it.  
> Secondly, you start to get a hint of what's going to be revealed in the rest of this quest. I had to split it in two for obvious reasons - it would have been like a 15,000 word chapter otherwise. Plus this was just a natural place to put a break.  
> Lastly, I just wanted to make a comment on Zevran here. In-game, he is a womanizer, a man-whore, a frivolous assassin who makes many observations and flirts with everyone. But I feel like there's more to him. He was raised communally by whores, then sold to the Crows. Here, he lived hand-to-mouth, being rewarded for being selfish. If he could take it, or trick it, away from someone else then it was his. He didn't learn right from wrong. He never learned what "fair" was. He never got any tenderness from a parent or a sibling, or even a friend. This is why I think he is so sexual - it's the only hint of tenderness he's ever received from anyone, and he craves that tenderness desperately. Maybe there's some Freudian things going on here with his attraction to a woman old enough to be his mother. I don't know. I just think that they could potentially help heal each other with their mutual brokenness. I hadn't planned this romance, but they sure did demand I let them go there.


	23. The Ashes

Alistair looked around the room, trying to give Leliana and Solona what small amount of privacy he could. He was still in shock over what he had seen. He hadn't realized – though thinking about it now, it made perfect sense – how  _marked_  Leliana had been by her time with the Chevaliers. Surely she had scars? Not even healing magic could leave her skin smooth after the mess of wounds he'd been able to see on her body. He didn't know for sure – the one time he'd seen her in just her nightshirt, he wasn't exactly paying attention, as he had been busy fighting darkspawn in naught but his breeches.

Some wounds on the bard had been scabbed, some open and weeping. The shift she'd been wearing was as much pink and red as it was white, blotched in long lines, likely where she'd opened something by stretching the wrong way. Or perhaps the Revered Mother was trying to reduce her scarring by periodically removing the scabs? He'd heard of that done before. It was excruciating, but effective. Either way, he was thoroughly horrified by the sheer amount of torture she'd clearly gone through; horrified, and impressed, that such a small woman, from such a spoiled upbringing, could take such a punishment and come back from it with such faith, and such personality. Lesser women – lesser people – would have just given up, let themselves fade away, or taken their own lives.

He hadn't been able to hear anything the two other, slight translucent women were saying, but reading Leliana's body language was enough. Seeing how the brunette woman leaned in toward the bard, seeing how Leliana cringed away; watching Leliana's head whip back from person to person as their mouths opened; hearing Leliana's confession at the beginning. He'd jumped out of surprise when Solona shouted to Leliana about her vision, he'd been so wrapped up in watching the silent exchange before him. He'd nearly cheered openly at Leliana's words as the woman she identified as Marjolaine lay dying at her feet.

And now here they were, the two hugging and kissing and murmuring to each other. He glanced over once more to see Solona looking at him. She gestured with her head that he should come over, so he did, laying a hand on Leliana's back. Solona's hand shot out and gripped his shoulder pauldron, pulling him in for a hug. He let out a laugh right alongside Leliana, and then they were all laughing uproariously in relief, tension melting away from them.

"I see we missed a party."

He looked up to see Zevran and Wynne entering the room. They seemed… different, somehow. He couldn't put his finger on it, however, so he shrugged it off. Letting go of Leliana and Solona, he turned to face them.

"Not really," he said, shrugging and shaking out the rest of the tension he'd been holding in his shoulders since Leliana's transformation. "You two had an interesting time?"

Wynne blushed, for some reason Alistair was sure he'd never know. "No… and yes. It was not pleasant, but it was needed."

"Well, that's, uh…" He was saved from having to say anything more by a doorway suddenly appearing in the wall next to them.

"I guess it's time to go," Solona said, releasing Leliana, but retaining hold of her hand. "Let's get on with this. I'm tired of this damned mountain."

He let out a chuckle. "Truer words have never been spoken." He followed them through, not sure what would come, but certain it couldn't be worse than what he'd just seen.

* * *

_She sits on her bedroll, writing in a journal. She has a voice for singing, would sing this eventually, but the words are coming to her now almost faster than she can write them. An elf sits across from her, the keeper of his clan, wielding powerful magic to keep them safe, keep them from going hungry, to protect them from Men, who feel elves are beneath them. Next to him sits one of her elite warriors, wielding mundane and arcane powers alike in a dizzying display of power. But the warrior does not wield the power lightly, does not use it to subjugate the Maker's children. No, she protects them. She sees the injustice and works to correct it._

_After a time, the woman finishes, writing the last of the words that would come to her this night. Now is the time for speaking, for communing with her followers. She sets aside ink and quill, places her hands in her lap, and looks up at the two in front of her._

_"What can I help you with?"_

_The arcane warrior speaks first, her voice serious as she voices her concerns. "Our warriors, My Lady. They grow impatient. Your army grows to resent them. They must hear from your lips what you have to say, for they mutter that my brethren are no better than the Imperium, despite our showing them that we are very different."_

_"They also grow leery of the elvhen," the Keeper tells her. "There has been talk. The humans are unaware we can hear it, but we can, and it worries me. They do not see us as equals, and the fact that I and the other keepers use magic makes them distrust us even more."_

_She considers them. She was aware of the unrest, but has been hoping to alleviate the worries of the common folk through action. Perhaps that is not how it will be._

_Nodding, she rises, exits her tent, and calls all those following her to meet in the meadow near their camp. Once there, she sings. She sings of the Maker's love for His creations, and how sad He was to no longer take an active role in their lives, but how it was necessary for them to grow. She sings of how magic should never be used to subjugate Man, only to help him. She distinguishes the intent of the magic users following her from the intent of the Imperium. By the time she is through, worries have been alleviated, and the elves, humans, and arcane warriors are standing as a single people once more._

* * *

_This new magic is frightening. Frightening, and intoxicating. She can see it in their eyes. Even the mages she has fighting on her side are tempted, she can tell. It takes power from people, takes the life energy from their very blood. It's intoxicating nature draws demons to its practitioner. More than once in battle, a Magister has transformed, a demon overtaking the body and rampaging until one of her Elite is able to destroy it._

_The first time the blood of the battlefield was used against her army, they were almost routed. But faith surged forth once more when her Elite burst through the line. Their power was still stronger. These men and women were in control, would not be swayed by demons. The mages took heart and pressed on, in turn rallying her soldiers. They had pushed back the Magisters, who used their fallen comrades' blood against their foes in attempt to make them quit the field._

_She had rejoiced, thanked the Maker, and sung His Song, her Chant, over the field of victory._

_Now, though, they stack the bundles of wood at her feet, a man with a torch standing by. She will die, but she will die a martyr. They had stripped her of her hair, tied her naked to the pole. Her husband, Maferath, stands by, unable to look her in the eye, and yet unable to look away from her form. He betrayed her, drugging her and taking her into the hands of the enemy. And now he stands with them._

_She holds her head high as the torch is brought to the kindling. Hessarian orders the man to light the wood, and it seems the heat reaches her immediately. She stands strong, boring her gaze into Hessarian's face as her skin begins to heat. His eyes finally flick up to hers when she can no longer hold back her cries. Even as she screams she holds his gaze. She sees his eyes change, knows the Maker has spoken to him. Her heart soars with relief and joy that she would finally know her Maker as the sword is drawn._

_She feels nothing but gratitude – for the end of the pain, for the chance to be at her beloved Maker's side – when the sword enters her skin and pierces her heart._

* * *

_Andraste is dead. At the hands of the Imperium. And not only that. Encountering the power channeled by her arcane warriors, the Magisters had made a deal with demons, bringing a new magic, a deadly, dangerous magic, intoxicating, to this world. It is a power that draws demons to the practitioner like a moth to a flame. A magic that uses the very life-essence in the blood of the fallen, requiring more strength of will, more resolve, than any mortal person can muster for long. The world will never be the same._

_The arcane warriors and all others who survive flee with Her Ashes, traveling for many a day until one among them finds a suitable mountain. The leader of the arcane warriors confirms that it is indeed a holy place, the Veil thin, allowing the Maker, and benevolent spirits, to commune with the group without harm. This would be the resting place of the Ashes. And Her followers would live below, protect it, hopefully spread her Chant, and their order of warriors, all throughout Thedas. They would work to make her House for Mages a reality. There was hope yet, even with Her death._

* * *

He watched them walk into the next room, only to almost fall into the gaping chasm in front of them. Scarcely five feet of a ledge between the doorway and an abyss with no visible bottom, and then the doorway vanished once the last person was through. He watched  _them_ watch in awe as Andraste was shown to them, writing the Chant, speaking with her advisors, singing to her people until all unrest was gone. They watched as Andraste and her army marched on the Imperium, and they saw the Magisters in communion with demons, coming out of the Fade with the knowledge of blood magic. They watched as it became clear that the blood magic still wasn't enough to turn the tide against the arcane warriors that made up the elite of Andraste's army. The thing that conquered her army was betrayal – Andraste's earthly husband betrayed Her to the Imperium, and She was killed. The survivors scattered, those closest to the Prophet gathering Her Ashes and bringing them to this very mountaintop. They settled in the village below.

That was where the vision stopped. The vivid colors of the scene disappeared, and in their place hovered the Guardian. He descended to their level slowly, finally alighting on a bridge of light that appeared as he landed upon it.

"You have seen the history," he said, his voice echoing in the cavernous room. "You have questions. I am here to answer them."

The arcane warrior spoke without hesitation. "The Chantry and the Circle interprets the Chant of Light to say that mages should be kept under lock and key. Is that incorrect?"

He nodded, knowing she would want clarification, knowing that this injustice was what weighed most heavily on her mind. "Andraste never wanted subjugation for any of the Maker's subjects. Magic is a gift from the Maker, and it should be used to the betterment of all His creations. The Tevinter Imperium used magic for selfish gain: they enslaved the elvhen, made war and conquest upon their neighbors, and, in the end, made a deal with demons in order to win against the warriors who channeled the Maker's gift so closely. They still did not win, instead unleashing blood magic upon the land, making a pact with demons that plagues you even today. After seeing that, those survivors who started the Chantry took hold of Andraste's words on magic and, over time, it was distorted to the message preached today."

"And what of the arcane warriors?" she asked, brows knit almost to the point of meeting each other over her eyes. "Why did I battle one here? Why are there no others? Why am I one, if I am not descended from those in the village? Why does no one know of them?"

"All of her Elite came here. The Chantry no longer knows of their involvement in the Exalted March. You are descended from an arcane warrior who did not settle in this village, however – Andraste's Elite were not the only arcane warriors in Thedas, Warden. Magic runs strongly in your blood. The trials of being a warden are what unlocked the power for you. Had you stayed in the Circle, you never would have been challenged enough to discover the well of power you have within you. Andraste's Elite were the core of her army, using magic to serve the Maker and their fellows, men and elves alike who had learned to channel their Maker-given gifts straight from the Fade."

"My magic has something to do with the Fade?"

"Yes. You can enter and exit it at will, without the aid of spells or lyrium. This is because you exist very much like this holy place – the Veil within you, keeping your soul in your body, is thin. But because it is natural, instead of ripping your soul from your body, you can traverse that barrier at will while inviting no harm. Andraste and her Elite knew this, knew that their magic could be harnessed for good, and they recruited and trained every mage and warrior they could, seeking out those like them to add to their ranks. This is what Duncan saw in you, Warden. This is the thing that made you different, someone who could contribute to his Order. He did not know exactly this, of course, that you were the only one left of an ancient Order. He knew only that you possessed some quality that made you stand out. But it is, nonetheless, why you are a warden, and why you are not in the Tower any longer."

"So Andraste wasn't preaching  _against_  magic." The male warden spoke now, awe written clearly upon his face. "She was speaking more about selfishness and greed."

The Guardian nodded his head. "Indeed."

"This changes…  _everything_." The arcane warrior traded glances with the elder mage. "Wynne, it changes  _everything_! The Circle was never meant to be a prison! It was meant to be an academy! 'A House for Mages' was meant to be a place of learning, where those with the gift would learn more, and where arcane warriors could be found and given special training!" She glanced at the Guardian for confirmation, and he nodded once more, glad she was able to make that connection on her own.

"That… makes sense," the bard said. "The lines in the Chant that mention magic, the history the Chantry has of Andraste's idea for a 'house for all mages.' I can see how those who survived might think all mages were problematic, because of the Imperium, because of their blood magic, because those two things killed their Prophet – or at least appeared to. So the truth was distorted, or not remembered correctly, and people have suffered for it."

"Spirit," the elder mage addressed him. "Should we attempt to make a change? Should we spread this truth? Should we change the nature of the Circle?"

He smiled. "What do you think, Senior Enchanter?"

She scrutinized him for a moment. "Yes. Yes, the truth of Andraste should be spread. Mages should be taught they have a gift to use for the Maker, not held in a cage because they're told it's a curse. People should be able to come to this place, make a pilgrimage and see the truth for themselves."

He nodded, staying silent, awaiting their next question. He knew what it would be, but it had fallen out of their focus, since they had not had a battle in several days. Finally, it was the Antivan assassin who spoke. "What of the sword?"

A chorus of agreement echoed, his companions somewhat incredulous that they'd forgotten. The female warden drew it, holding it out with two hands as though to hand it to him, should he wish to take it.

"Ah, yes. That is a sword of Dwarven-make, made for Andraste's Elite long ago."

"But," the male warden interjected, "I've never seen anything so…  _pretty_  made by the dwarves."

"The dwarves are capable of almost magical feats with metal and lyrium. Just because they themselves prefer a certain style, does not mean they can make nothing else." The warden looked sheepish, mumbling an apology for interrupting. "Each of Andraste's Elite were gifted a weapon of his or her choice, which allowed the warrior to channel the energy through it, helping to maintain control at all times."

"So, the animal nature that overtakes me is… normal?" The female warden no longer held her sword out, alternating between examining it and looking up to him for answers.

The Guardian nodded. "It can be tempered. There are exercises that can help maintain focus, to help you find your calm. Practiced often, you can retain your control in combat. When combined with this weapon, your fellows would hardly the difference from when you are and are not channeling the arcane energy."

"Except for the creepy glowing eyes," the other warden mumbled, eliciting a chuckle from several of his companions.

"Indeed." The Guardian looked around at them for a moment, then continued. "Each warrior also had a special set of armor made, also a gift from the dwarves. It did not channel the energy as the weapon did, but it was strong and light, heavily enchanted to shield against magical attacks from afar – as the Magisters tended to do."

"Are you saying that the dwarves will have more information for me?" She looked up at him, eyes narrowed in scrutiny.

He smiled once more. "You are ready," he said simply before rising from the bridge, ignoring their startled shouts and inquiries.

After a few minutes, they gave up and approached the bridge. They studied it for several minutes before the bard, leading her lover by the hand, and the senior mage, leading the assassin by the hand, both took a step of faith, walking with heads held high across the chasm below. The moment the party set foot on the other side, the bridge disappeared, leaving them with only one way to go – forward.

* * *

The light-bridge was strange. They observed it for several minutes, wondering aloud if it was safe. Zevran made a cursory sweep of the ledge on which they were standing, searching for a triggering mechanism that might make it solid, or at least make something  _happen_ , but to no avail. Finally, Leliana exchanged a few words with Wynne, took Solona by the hand, and stepped out onto the light.

Alistair had expected her to fall, but she did not, and he hurried to follow them, wondering slightly at Wynne continuing to hold Zevran by the hand even after the elf was walking. He knew he couldn't hesitate, that this must be some test of faith, so he forced himself to look only at his companions' retreating heads until he was safely off the ledge and on the bridge itself. It seemed solid enough, so he chanced a glance down. It wasn't a pleasant experience to be able to see through the bridge, and to not be able to see the bottom below. But the bridge continued to hold, so he shrugged it off as best he could. They had said the Veil was thin here, magic and benevolent spirits in such abundance that strange things were bound to happen.

At least, that was what he told himself.

It barely helped.

The bridge blinked out of existence as soon as his foot landed on stone on the other side. He almost jumped, so startled by its disappearance was he, but he managed not to fall, rushing forward to get away from the ledge.

He and heights were not friends. There had been more than one reason he had not wished to venture to the top of the Tower of Ishal.

Up ahead was a giant statue of gold in the likeness of Andraste. But what drew Alistair's eyes was the wall of flame before it. It stretched from wall to wall, with no apparent break or gap. How were they supposed to pass?

Solona made her way to a small, raised pedestal of stone; some kind of altar, perhaps? It had a tablet on it, and she read the words aloud. "'Cast off the trappings of worldly life and cloak yourself in the goodness of spirit. King and slave, lord and beggar; be born anew in the Maker's sight.'" She looked up. "Any ideas on what it means?"

Alistair hadn't the foggiest.

"Read it again," Zevran said, coming to stand next to her. She complied, reading it through several more times before Leliana let out an "aha!"

"I know what we must do." She looked up to Solona, then found Alistair's eyes. "We may not like it, but it is the only way forward."

"What is it, Leli?" Solona came to her, her eyebrows pinched in worry. It occurred to Alistair that the mage was probably feeling more protective than usual after witnessing her struggle in the previous chamber.

In answer, Leliana shrugged, giving Solona a wan smile before reaching up and undoing the buckle of her shoulder pauldrons. She continued, relieving herself of first her weapons and then her armor.

"Maker, Leliana! What are you  _doing_?"

"What she must," Zevran answered, reaching up and beginning the same process himself.

Alistair was confused. "I'm still not sure I…" And then it hit him. Riddles had never been what he was best at, but they generally eventually came to him. Lord and beggar had one thing in common – everybody was born naked.  _And the stone said something about being born anew_ …

He was paralyzed as he watched his companions undress. First came off the armor, then the homespun underneath, and finally their smallclothes. He couldn't rip his eyes away. Solona he'd seen naked, nothing new there – though he could admit, distantly, that she was attractive, while simultaneously noting that the sight of her did not arouse his desire. Zevran was remarkably like any male human, though of smaller stature, and not nearly as muscled as most fighting men; probably something to do with stealth and speed, and not using heavy arms and armor. Wynne was still firm, with very few wrinkles, just as Zevran had predicted.

But Leliana… Leliana was indeed covered in scars, as he had predicted. Long, jagged white lines crisscrossed her back, her buttocks, the backs of her thighs and calves. How could he have possibly missed that? He must have been too worried about fighting for his life, and then Zevran's close call, the night her legs had been exposed to him. He watched Solona lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, enfold her in an embrace, kiss her hair-

"Enjoying the show?" He snapped out of his paralysis to find Wynne with her arms folded over her breasts, one eyebrow raised.

"I, uh, can't take my own armor off," he admitted, blushing furiously and looking to the floor. "Solona had to help me put it on this morning."

"No problem," Zevran answered, cracking his knuckles before rubbing his hands together, a gleam in his eye. He stood proud, completely unashamed of his nudity. "I have  _plenty_  of experience getting strapping young men out of their armor."

Wynne smacked his shoulder lightly. "Zevran, really!"

"What?"

"We are before the earthly remains of the Prophet and still you cannot help but lewdly jest!"

He shrugged. "They wanted me to be sincere, not lie. I  _sincerely_  have much experience with a man's plate armor."

Alistair laughed, then surrendered. "Do what you will."

Zevran's eyes gleamed again. "Be careful what you wish for, Alistair."

Zevran, as it turned out, was far more efficient than Solona had been, leaving Alistair unarmored in just a few minutes. His clothing he could handle himself, turning to hide himself from his companions until he was entirely undressed.

"Alright, let's get this over with, shall we?" Solona stood hand-in-hand with Leliana, looking to him, seeing if he was ready. He nodded, eliciting a nod from her in response before she turned back to the flames. She and Leliana both took a visible deep breath, then stepped as one through the flame.

He wanted to cry out, wanted to reach out and stop them. He expected the flame to blister their skin, to burn their hair. Instead, they stopped inside the flame for a moment, then continued on unharmed to the other side. Shaking his head, he joined Zevran and Wynne, determined to not be last, to show his faith in this holy place.

The flame was hot – very hot. But it did not burn him. He was forced to pause as it engulfed his body, and it worried him momentarily. Would the flames burn him if he were still? What would that mean – that he was not worthy? He'd never had to question his faith in the Maker, in Andraste, but then again, he'd never been in a position to have it questioned. Growing up in the Chantry made it sort of a given. Was a he a true believer? He'd made it this far, but none of the conflicts so far really concerned him directly, had never caused him to question his beliefs.

But that new information about Andraste… learning that had made him start to doubt. Not his faith, per se, but the teachings he'd learned. Duncan had helped him to see that the Templar Order was every bit as corrupt as it was good. But with this new information, he couldn't help but think that Andraste would look at her Chantry and weep. She didn't want mages persecuted, apostates killed by templars, children ripped from their families and taken away. She wanted mages to use their gifts for the good of the world, the good of the Maker.

He vowed to himself to do what he could to right that wrong.

 _And with that, you have proven yourself worthy, Alistair Theirin_.

The words appeared in his mind, voiced and yet not, and he was allowed to pass through the flames, his body unblemished, his mind clear. He could see exactly what he needed to do, and though it terrified him, he swore he would do it.

If Eamon asked him to, he would take the crown. It was the only way he could ensure that what he saw here was taught, that the false teachings of the Chantry were corrected, that the plight of the mages was heard and responded to.

As he stepped forward, out of the flames, he felt remarkably light, like he could go running for half a day. Given that he had been feeling run-down from his still-healing injuries, this really was quite remarkable. Before he could question it, however, the now-familiar voice of the Guardian echoed all around.

"You have proven yourselves worthy. You have walked the path of Andraste, learned of Her and Her history, Her friends and foes, and you have passed through the cleansing, healing flames. You have been healed and refreshed from your trials. You may now each approach the Ashes and take a pinch for yourselves."

_Well, that explains why I suddenly feel so good. I_ _**did** _ _try to get eaten by a dragon in order to get here. If that isn't a trial, I don't know what is._

Feeling so much better meant he needed no one's help with his armor. So, as the Guardian disappeared in a misty haze, he moved to where he'd left it, beginning the task with a lighter heart and a purpose for after the Blight, both things he'd lacked upon entrance.

* * *

Solona approached the Ashes alone. Taking out a clean vial, she reached a hand in, shaking slightly at the prospect of touching  _the_  Ashes, and deposited her pinch into the vial. Placing the now-stoppered vial back inside her hip-pouch, she looked up to study the statue looming above her.

It was very large, and made of gold. It was in the likeness of Andraste, and yet looked different from any statue she'd seen. It was… more realistic, somehow, like it was a live person holding very still instead of a statue of inanimate stone.  _Another magical aspect of this place_.

She thought of all she'd learned about the woman. The Prophet Andraste had been a  _friend_  to mages. She had preached that mages should use their powers for the good of the people, rather than the good of themselves. Mages were an integral part of her army. Arcane warriors – like herself – were the backbone of her army against the Imperium.

And Solona herself could be descended from one of those warriors.

Her heart soared at the knowledge. She was tempted to feel bitter toward the Circle, toward the Chantry, toward the men and women who left Andraste's side and scattered after their defeat. But she remembered Leliana, their conversation by the lake, and tried to put herself in the shoes of those who fled. Those people, likely uneducated, former slaves, had only been oppressed by magic, and had only their memory of the Prophet and her Chant with which to construct the church that Andraste herself was meant to form. For a brief, shining moment, magic was used to aid them. But, in the end, they saw it bring only death and pain, the Magisters using blood magic – which may have looked startlingly like arcane energy to those untrained to know the difference – to kill them, oppress them, chain them, enslave them.

So they preached against magic. It was safer for magic to be watched, to be controlled, to be locked away from the common folk and kept out of their bloodlines. Solona wasn't sure she could blame them. She didn't know what it was like  _not_  to have magic, but she knew what blood magic was like. She knew what demons and dark magic were like. She pitied them their misunderstandings. Her vow to do what she could to change things was what allowed her out of the flames. Standing before Andraste's Ashes, she silently renewed her vow.

But the first step, of course, was to defeat the archdemon.

She walked away from the altar, allowing the next person to contemplate the Prophet.

* * *

Leliana watched Solona, Wynne, Alistair, and Zevran approach the Urn in turn. They each took several minutes contemplating the statue after taking their pinch of Ashes and placing them in a vial provided by the two mages. She could only begin to guess what passed through their heads as they looked upon Andraste's likeness, but they seemed… serene when they rejoined her by the pedestal.

Leliana stood fidgeting with the fingers of Solona's hand, held in her own. She had long-since replaced her clothing and armor, trying hard not to focus on the fact that her body was bared to her companions. But they had thankfully said nothing, and Solona had very sweetly done her best to shield Leliana's body from sight until her clothing was on. They had shared an embrace, wordlessly promising to discuss everything they'd seen and experienced in this place when they had the time. She needed time to process it all, especially what had happened when she had walked through the flames.

She had been halted for a moment without time, unable to move of her own accord, right in the middle of the flames. Images of Marjolaine had flashed before her eyes, images of Mother Dorothea, of Solona, of her time in the Chantry, of her visits with Leandra and Bethany all swirling together. She hadn't known what it all meant until the end, when the images stopped, leaving Leliana looking at herself in her vision. She was standing in a dark abyss, looking up into the light that was holding the darkness at bay. But she looked different somehow. She was… sure of herself. Of her place. And it showed in her posture. She wore holy robes unlike any she had seen, with a symbol like the Eye of Truth, but different, emblazoned upon the front. Her hair was braided back out of her face, much longer than it was now. She held a sword in one hand and prayer beads in the other.

_'The righteous stand before the Darkness, and the Maker shall guide their hand.'_

_I am both a creature of the Chantry and the Nightingale_ … It had hit her like a brick. What she saw before her, the Leliana that would help hold the Blight at bay, who would help hold the Darkness at bay, would do so using both her tools of faith and the tools of the bardic arts. Both pasts came together to make her present.  _I must take these pieces of myself, these ways I have defined myself, and make myself anew. I can no longer deny my past or my skills, no matter how devious or shameful I may find their origin._

As soon as she had made that realization, she had been released, and she was allowed to step out of the heat of the flame. She had looked around in wonder for a moment, and then realized that she was standing there, naked as the day she was born, scars on display for all to see. Just then, Alistair having stepped through, the flames had blinked out, and the Guardian had spoken. Upon his words, she realized that she felt completely refreshed, as though she had awoken from a long sleep and eaten a hearty meal. She had donned her clothing and armor, and now here she stood, fidgeting, pondering a question to which she no longer knew the answer.

Finally, Zevran stepped down, serene eyes showing no hint of his thoughts. His reaching for Wynne's hand, and Wynne taking it, did not go unnoticed, however, and it was with a small smile that Leliana began to ascend the steps leading to the Urn of Sacred Ashes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I am definitely taking some liberties with canon here. But. I also explain my whole vision for the arcane warrior thing. And tie it in with Andraste. So that's nice, right?
> 
> Leliana is done being all emo. I think it was needed, but it kinda sucked there for a few days for her, didn't it? She's realized her past is a part of her, and can help her. I also went back and brought her vision more in line with her role in Inquisition. When I initially wrote this, no one knew what Leliana would be doing, and I hadn't played any DLC for either DA:O or DAII. Now that I know the plot to Inquisition, and indeed have begun a fic based on it – O Seeker Still Seeking – going back through this fic and tying them together is actually a great deal of fun. And far easier than I initially would have guessed.


	24. Back To Redcliffe... Again

The trek down the mountain was blessedly uneventful.

Emerging back into the entrance, Max had leapt up into Solona's arms with a very puppy-like yip of excitement, showing just how strong the mage had become when she caught him and held him in the air without even losing her balance. Sten had grunted and abandoned his spot keeping watch at the temple entrance. Morrigan had smirked and said, "I hope they were all you had hoped, because it certainly took you long enough." At their silence, she had huffed and trekked ahead, leading the lot of them past the dragon's corpse (starting to smell now in the heat from the sulfur pits) and down toward the village at a somewhat breakneck speed.

On the way down, Solona had travelled up ahead with Morrigan, speaking with her about the knowledge they had gained. Wynne could only guess at the witch's reaction to the news – she certainly wasn't excited enough to proclaim it aloud – but they stayed in conversation the entire way back to the village, a half-day's journey unhampered by dragons and cultists, so she supposed the witch was curious, at the very least.

She wasn't sure what to think, herself. It was… astounding, this new information. Andraste had  _employed_  mages; arcane warriors formed the  _backbone_  of her army; her Exalted March pitted her followers against the chains of the Imperium, not the chains of magic. She was, in fact,  _not_  preaching the evil of magic; quite the opposite: she was preaching the evil of  _greed_. Her message was that magic could be, and  _should_  be, used for the betterment of all of Thedas. Mages were people, just like all others – they too could fall victim to greed. But if taught from a young age how to wield their powers with grace and wisdom, perhaps they could make a world of wise mages who served their fellows, instead of the good mages being locked away in the Circle and the bad ones in the Imperium – as it was now, and as it had been since Andraste had walked amongst them.

"What do you think of all that we have learned?" she had asked Zevran.

The elf had taken her hand, raising it to his lips and kissing the back of her knuckles. She flushed as he spoke. "I think you were right when we were before the Spirit," he had said. "I think this message needs to be spread, though I admit I do not see the Chantry as it exists now accepting the message from a group like ours."

She had chuckled at that, taking in their group: several humans, three of whom were mages, rounded out by an elf, a qunari heathen, and a dog. "That is true. I'm not sure travelling minstrels or performers are quite as diverse as the lot of us."

"But the first step, of course, is to defeat the Blight," he had continued, holding her hand easily as they walked. "We must do the easier things first, it seems."

"Right, defeat the Blight, eat lunch, maybe sit back and watch you wrestle a few trolls. Then we can take on the entirety of the Chantry."

"I like how you think, Wynne," he'd said with a wink, and they had both laughed. As she looked back ahead, she caught Leliana practically staring out of the corner of her eye. Alistair, too.  _Well, it was going to come out eventually_ …

They now sat around Haven's inn, eating and drinking their fill, sharing the details they were willing to of what had happened in the Gauntlet with Brother Genetivi. He was so captivated by the information about Andraste that he neglected to ask about their trials. None of them volunteered the information. He sat asking Solona everything he could about her powers, her connection to the Fade, what the Guardian had to say about the Prophet and what she had seemed like in their vision. The warden would be busy for a while.

"So," Leliana said, eyeing Wynne slyly around her tankard. Her voice was low, quiet, and conspiratorial. Wynne knew what was coming, and was both terrified to say anything, and yet desperate to tell  _someone_  what had happened, how she was feeling. The bard raised an eyebrow as she continued. "You and Zevran had your own trial? You seem to have come through closer for it."

Wynne sighed. "Very well. I will tell you all about it-" here, Leliana practically squealed in delight while remaining utterly silent, her eyes getting very large "-but you must come with me to a separate room. I hardly wish to go blabbing Zevran's secrets to everyone."

Leliana was on her feet before Wynne was even finished speaking, tugging the older woman to her feet and heading off toward the inn's rooms. She shook her head at Solona's questioning look, a small smile on her face. This woman liked secrets. Wynne supposed she shouldn't be surprised – you had to be observant and actively  _want_  secret information if you were a successful bard. And unsuccessful bards were  _dead_ bards.

She was happy to see the woman doing so much better. Whatever had happened in the Gauntlet, it had restored Leliana to her usual charm and pep, and her bearing seemed lighter than it ever had been while Wynne had known her, as though something truly burdensome had been lifted from her shoulders.

They settled on a bed in the corner of a room, and Wynne got right to sharing what she had witnessed with Zevran. It didn't take long, even though the experience itself had seemed to last for a very long time. When she was through, Leliana was holding her hand, looking with sympathetic eyes into her own.

"That poor man," she murmured, shaking her head slowly. "I cannot believe he has been living with that decision." She looked up at Wynne. "But, Wynne. How did  _you_  feel about it? It had to be difficult to see, to hear, and from her mouth, no less."

Wynne sighed, taking her hand from Leliana's and standing. "At the time whatever I might have felt was overridden by the broken man crying into my lap." She took a step forward, began to pace slowly in front of the bard. "Murder and intrigue have been such a huge part of his life, as you have said. But how can I forgive him something like that? He killed her because he thought she betrayed the Crows."

Leliana interrupted before she could get any further. "No, Wynne, I do not think that is why. I think he simply justified it like that to his partner." Wynne paused her pacing, looking to the young woman. She knew this, as well, but hearing it from another helped solidify it, was incredibly reassuring. "I think he killed her because she betrayed  _him_. Or, at least he thought she did. By betraying the mission, by going to the target ahead of time, letting the man know they were coming, she would be essentially signing his death warrant. That is the worst of betrayals. I know." She got very quiet at the end.

Wynne resumed her slow pacing, thinking hard about what Leliana had just said. It wasn't his loyalty to the Crows that had moved him to action, it was his heart. His  _broken_  heart. She stopped once more, asking Leliana, "But why would he not confront her with this information, see if it was true?"

Leliana gave her a sad smile. "Assassins are skilled liars, Wynne. If she were truly as good as he says then she would not tell him if she were betraying them. It is the world of intrigue. He knew that his emotional investment in the situation would not allow him to be able to tell if she was telling the truth or not."

Wynne frowned, coming to sit once more. "That is the crux of it. How do I know he speaks the truth?"

Here, Leliana smiled much more brightly. "He is telling you the truth, Wynne. You have captured his heart." She looked up to the bard, incredulous and yet also hopeful. "Wynne," Leliana said, letting out a small laugh, "he confessed to you before the Maker! We could not lie in there, we could speak the truth, or nothing at all. The specter of this Rinna  _told_  him that the Maker could forgive him, but he needed to forgive himself. I do not think you need to doubt his resolve in this."

Wynne sighed. "I know you're right. I knew his sincerity at the time. But now we are here, and doubts creep at my thoughts." She left unsaid that some of the doubts had to do with the fact that she was incredibly inexperienced at romantic relationships. Her one experience was full of sneaking, with very little room for open displays of affection, or talking openly. She felt… confused, like a young woman in her first courtship might. But that experience, with the templar and her son, was not one she wished to discuss right now.

Leliana placed a hand on her shoulder. "You should speak with him, Wynne. You cannot have a relationship without communication, and he is not practiced at it. You will have to teach him how to do so." She smiled. "Think of it as something about relationships that  _you_  are the more skilled at. You will both have things to bring that you can teach each other, if you are open and honest, and can  _let_  the other be the teacher."

Wynne smiled ruefully. "Such wise words from someone so young."

A sigh. "I am learning a lot of this myself. Marjolaine was none of the things Solona is. It is completely different, from any relationship of any kind I have ever had. I was promiscuous in Orlais – a bard's loyalties must be fluid, and Marjolaine would not give me what I wanted from her in terms of exclusivity. I… filled the gap with meaningless excursions. Sometimes I would find another young woman who was taken with me, and who I could see myself with. Marjolaine would quickly convince me against it, and I would inevitably break the poor woman's heart."

Leliana hesitated before continuing. "This… this is nothing like that. Solona tells me what she is thinking, doesn't hesitate to give herself to me, and  _expects_  that I do the same for her. I think that the expectation is key. It is difficult to have a relationship where you trust each other if you cannot expect honesty, if you are not  _sure_  of how the other feels. I am learning still, of course. But I do not think she has any learning to do when it comes to this. I think this is why her betrayals have hurt so much – she gives her whole self, and expects it in return. When it is not given, she is indignant."

Wynne smiled. "That sounds like Solona. And you're right. In her interactions in the Circle, she would have no reason to hold anything back; she is quite sheltered in that regard. Her life of having to keep secrets began with the Grey Wardens. She is not very good at holding back what she is thinking."

Leliana giggled. "It is true! Her face is an open book!"

"Tell me something, Leliana," Wynne said, smiling indulgently. "Have you  _told_  her that you love her? Because it is obvious that you do."

Leliana immediately blushed, bringing wonder to Wynne. The young woman could speak of sex with multiple partners with no problems, but she brought up love, and suddenly the bard was a maiden talking about a cute boy! She supposed that made sense, in a way – those emotions were  _not_  encouraged in her former lives, either as a bard or as a lay-sister, whereas the promiscuity was merely another one of her tools as a bard.

"I… have not mentioned anything to her. It is just… so  _fast_ , Wynne. How can I fall in love, with my past as broken as it is, this quickly?"

Wynne smiled. "Sometimes our hearts just know a good connection when we make it. Our hearts then have to wait for our heads to figure everything else out. Look at my own hesitation with Zevran."

Leliana sighed. "I suppose you're right. And this is not like a normal courtship. We have spent every waking moment together for three months –  _and_  almost every sleeping moment. Spread that amount of time out over a normal courtship, and it would be easy to see someone falling in love."

"You have an excellent point," the senior enchanter conceded. She sat still for a moment, then stood. "Come. We shouldn't keep to ourselves for too long. As it is, I'm sure there will be more than our fair share of prying questions."

Leliana got to her feet, and the two of them went back out to their companions and their ale, enjoying a few comforts before sleep and the trek down to the late summer heat the next morning.

* * *

"So, Wynne and Zevran, huh?"

Alistair was sitting at watch with Leliana and Solona. They normally did the shifts in two, but Alistair couldn't sleep, and the two women didn't seem to mind his company, so he'd gotten out of his tent and joined them a few minutes before. He had middle-shift anyway, with Morrigan. I wasn't like he was going to be well-rested the next morning either way.

" _Oui, je sais_!  _Quelle bonne surprise! C'est très excitant!_ "

Solona snorted. "I love how you slip into Orlesian whenever you get excited."

Leliana raised an eyebrow at her. "Indeed. Perhaps I am only telling you what a terrible lover you are, dear Warden?"

Alistair felt his entire face flush with heat after only a moment. Solona laughed at his reaction, clapping him on the shoulder. "It was worth it just for that, Alistair."

"You  _used_  me? You little scamp!" Leliana grabbed Solona by the chin, turning her so they were face to face. "You are going to  _pay_  for that later."

Solona visibly shivered at that.

Alistair decided a more active role in diverting the conversation was necessary. "You really are scary, Leliana. But can we get back to talking about Zevran and Wynne, and  _not_  what you're going to do to Solona later? I don't think I can take an in-depth description right now."

She looked over at him, releasing his fellow warden with a glint in her eye that made him altogether uncomfortable. Damn them – why did they feel the need to tease? "Oh,  _pauvre_  Alistair. It has been many weeks since the Pearl, hasn't it? That is not fair of me, to flaunt our-"

"Yes, yes, please can we move on?!"

Solona snorted. "Fine, fine. Tell us about those two, Leliana. I  _know_  you cornered her in the inn about it last night."

Alistair sat and listened. He was astounded, honestly. He'd been assuming Zevran's moves were all in jest, just as Solona had. To know the elven man had an actual  _interest_  in Wynne… Alistair reminded himself that she wasn't  _that_  old, no matter what she seemed to say about it. She was spry enough, complaining of her joints only that one time, when that storm came in. And he'd seen her naked, much to his dismay, and he had to admit that she really was simply older than the lot of them. "Older" didn't mean "ancient," however, and according to Leliana, Zevran's feelings were genuine.

But, still. He just couldn't quite… picture…

"Alistair, are you all right? You look like something got stuck on its way out."

"I'm fine!" he yelped at Solona, a little too quickly.

Solona grinned. "You were picturing them together, weren't you?"

"No!"

She cackled in delight. "Oh-ho! This will be fun! I can torture you when you least expect it!"

"That's hardly fair to him – or to Wynne and Zevran," Leliana said, yet she also wore a mischievous smile on her face.

"You two are wicked," he said, pointing to one and then the other. "And off-topic. Should we be worried?"

Solona immediately looked confused. "About what?"

"About Wynne! Zevran was an assassin! She was sheltered in the Circle! Aren't we worried about him taking advantage of her?"

They were both dead silent, staring at him, when he finished. Then they looked at each other, grinned, and burst out laughing. "Wynne? Helpless?!"

"She will surely string him up by his ankles should he scorn her!" Leliana laughed, giggling like a fool as she was clearly picturing the image.

He felt himself turn bright red once more. "I suppose you're right. And it's not like she doesn't know what she's doing. Did I tell you she tried to tell me where babies come from?" Another round of incredulous laughter sounded as he continued. "I told her I knew, thank you very much, but the detail she was about to go into was kind of scary." The two women were practically holding each other up, clutching each other while cackling madly. Before he could say anything more, however, Morrigan stomped over.

"Really, if you're going to act like children, could you perch  _anywhere_  but near  _my_  tent?"

Leliana and Solona took one look at her and then started laughing again. Morrigan rolled her eyes. "Oh, for all the – begone! I will take my watch early! There is no way I will be going back to sleep after your madness."

She literally shooed the other women away, settling next to Alistair with a huff. "Honestly, I do not know how you are able to stand them together."

"Leliana and Solona? They're fun," he said simply, shrugging, wondering when the explosion would happen. They still had yet to make it through a watch together without some sort of argument. They usually ended in Morrigan walking away and keeping her own company on the other side of camp.

"If by 'fun' you mean 'insufferable,' then I can see that. That  _bard_  is the most unbearable company I can imagine. And Solona turns into a simpering  _fool_  when they are together."

"Why do you dislike Leliana so much, Morrigan?"

"Why do  _you_  like her?"

Alistair sighed. "She's nice. She's never been anything but kind to me. And she teaches me things, and she…"

"Doesn't come to you in your tent,  _that's_  clear." The girls had started laughing again from their tent, punctuated by a breathy moan here and there. They really  _weren't_  trying to be quiet…

Alistair blushed at Morrigan's words. "No, no, she doesn't. She, uh, made it clear early on that my affections were… misplaced."

"Your 'affections'?" Morrigan said, raising an eyebrow.

 _Oh, balls…_  "I had a small crush on her when we first met in Lothering. I couldn't help it. I grew up around men, and men who thought very little of me, at that. A pretty girl who's nice to you is sometimes all it takes to develop an unhealthy infatuation."

"I see…" She frowned at him. "And now?"

How was this not turning into a fight? "Now, well… She's my friend. I have nothing but respect for her. Not that I didn't have respect for her before, but…"

She smirked. "And yet if she were to come to your bed, I'm sure you would take the offer. All men are-"

"Hey, now," he cut in, a little more sternly than he meant to. She bristled. "If she came to my bed, I would wonder what in the Maker's name had happened. Those two care deeply for each other. It's obvious to anyone with eyes. If one of them were to proposition me, I wouldn't take  _advantage_. I would try to help my friends."

Morrigan cocked her head, her expression now one of scrutiny. "Perhaps you are unlike the lecherous oafs I came to know in Lothering. You are..."

"I'm nothing. Just me, treating people the best I know how. I'm not some unbearably honorable man without flaw, nor the lumbering oafs so many think men are. I understand that in some it is an earned reputation, but I'd kindly appreciate it if you'd stop assuming things about me you don't actually know."

Another scrutinizing look, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. "Tell me, Alistair, what happened to you in the Gauntlet?"

He was slightly taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said, nitwit. That place was magical enough, the Veil thin; you communed with spirits, whether or not they want you to believe it is some long-dead Prophet of the absent Maker. What happened to you in that place? You are different from when you entered."

He shifted uncomfortably. He suddenly wished for his armor, to give him something to hide behind. Her harsh words were easier to deal with than her honest questions. "I… had a realization."  _I can't believe I'm telling_ _ **Morrigan**_ _of all people_.

"What did you realize?"

He sighed. "If Eamon asks me to, I'm going to take the throne."

She sat up, surprised. "My understanding was that you would not go near it."

"Yes, but that was before. The throne comes with power, and-"

"Being a Grey Warden is not enough? You have had a taste of power and now you seek more? I do not blame-"

"Will you let me finish, woman?! I don't want  _power_ , I want what I can  _do_  with it. I want to…  _fix_  things. The Circle, the Chantry. The message was wrong. People like you, your mother, Solona – you are hunted by people like those I trained with, and it is because of a false, distorted message from a lost, petrified people." He took a deep breath. "I saw the way of things, and having that power is the  _only_  way my voice will be heard."

She narrowed her eyes, studying him. "Why will they not hear the Warden-Commander of Ferelden?"

He snorted. "I'm not the Warden-Commander. Solona is. Surely you knew that?"

"But  _why_  is she, Alistair? You are the senior warden, the one teaching her what you know of the Order. Why are we not following  _you_?"

He thought about it for a minute. "I don't know. I've never been in charge of anything before, Morrigan. This is the first…  _decision_  that's ever been my own. It… it's my  _duty_ , and not just because someone  _told_  me it  _should_  be my duty. Not everyone has this opportunity. I do. I need to take it, no matter how much the idea of being king makes me absolutely  _squirm_." He sighed. "I made no such decision about being a warden."

"Given what you just said, you would make a fine leader."

"Well, maybe Solona and I can make joint decisions. Maker knows being in charge wasn't  _her_  first choice, either. I just didn't give her an option."

Morrigan considered him for a moment. A long moment. He began to get uncomfortable under her scrutiny. Finally, she spoke. "You surprise me, Alistair. I would never have guessed that you would grow up."

 _What was that supposed to mean?_  "Er… thank you?" He shifted, looking to change the subject. "So, what did you and Sten do while we were away?"

She smiled a wicked smile, and he knew he wouldn't like what she would have to say. "Sten wanted to know how many of you would come back possessed by demons.  _I_  tried to convince him into my bed, but, alas, the giant is single minded in his hatred of magical practitioners, even those in whose warm bed he could idle away some time."

"Y-your  _bed_?!"

"Yes. My bed." She grinned an evil grin. "Tell me something, Alistair. Why are you so eager to get back to Redcliffe and the Arl?"

He shook his head, feeling like he'd received a blow to the head, the subject was changed so fast. "I want to cure Eamon, of course."

"But what if these Ashes do not work? What if the magic infused in them only works in the walls of that place? 'Twould have been better to use them yourself, or did we go there for naught?"

He sighed. "Morrigan, even if you're right, and they're not holy and they don't work, isn't this new information worth it? Isn't it worth it to try to correct the wrong that has been done mages? Isn't it worth it to try to find more arcane warriors like Solona and train them, educate them, enable them to use their powers for the betterment of the world?"

"You mean use them for your own gain."

"No, I don't!" he shouted, getting frustrated with her insistence that he was a selfish, power-hungry tyrant. "Dammit, Morrigan! Maybe someone else who saw all that  _would_ , but don't you know me well enough to know that I would  _not_  subjugate you, use you for my own gain? I want to  _help_. Can't you accept that?"

She narrowed her eyes, glaring at him for a moment before getting up and resuming her usual position on the other side of the camp. Alistair sighed, settling in for the rest of his watch alone. As usual, it was a long night, full of convincing himself not to look behind him to see what Morrigan was doing.

* * *

They made love for the first time since the caves. It was glorious, full of laughs and sighs, kisses and caresses, and sweet, sweet words. Leliana was sure it hadn't yet been like that in the nearly six weeks they'd been lovers. Now they lie where they had collapsed in a sweaty heap, Solona with her head on Leliana's shoulder, their sticky bodies pressed together.

Solona smiled widely, lazily, nuzzling into Leliana's throat. Her hands began to wander, tracing scar after scar. It was all lazy caresses, not meant to stoke any fires. The attention felt good, and for the first time Leliana did not feel self-conscious about the veritable  _devotion_  Solona paid to her scarring. Perhaps she'd made the right decision atop the altar to Andraste?

"Leli?"

"Hmmm?"

"Perhaps this isn't the best time, but… you took a pinch of the Ashes, just like the rest of us, right?"

"Yes…"

"Were you thinking of using them? If they can heal the Arl, then I'm sure they can erase your scars, if you wanted to do so."

Leliana hesitated. "I thought about it." Solona pushed herself up to look at her. The mage's gaze was trained on her own, her normally slate grey eyes wide and dark in the dimness of their tent. "I have longed for a way to remove the marks on my body, for years now," she began, staring into those beloved eyes as she absently stroked the mage's hair. "It was the key to being able to be close to someone, I thought."

Solona reached up and caressed one of Leliana's cheeks. "But you didn't need that. You opened up to me, to Alistair and Wynne, without that."

Leliana smiled, turning her head to kiss the palm of Solona's hand. "Yes. I do not know what it is about you, but you made opening up so simple. And then we moved beyond that, and the entire time I have felt safe. When it was time to take the Ashes, the old longing returned briefly. But… well, I do not need them. The scars are a part of me, a part of my past, part of what shaped me. They no longer need to remind me of my shame. Then can instead remind me of what I have gone through in order to get here. So I saved the Ashes. I can always change my mind later. Besides," she said, smirking, "they hardly seem to have worked in keeping  _you_  away."

Solona grinned, ducking in for a quick kiss. "They are a part of you. They have always reminded me of what you've gone through, what  _strength_  you possess. And, truth be told, whenever any of them show their face, I find it incredibly erotic."

"You find my scars  _erotic_?"

"Yes. Because it means you're naked, Leli. I like you naked."

Leliana laughed out loud at that. "It is amazing you were ever able to charm anyone into your bed. What would be the opposite of a silver tongue?"

"You knew I was helpless from the start," Solona said, shrugging. "My cousin had to put someone up to it to bed me for the first time. And while it was fun, it was also all awkward, figuring out how things worked, how my own body worked. I had no idea how to woo a woman. And I saw no reason to keep my interest from you. Either you liked me or you didn't, and I would have rather known which sooner than later. Surely you're not telling me you're complaining?"

While she spoke, Solona's hands had begun to wander once more, to all of the places that made the fire beneath Leliana's flesh absolutely  _rage_. By the time the mage was through her little speech, Leliana almost didn't care what she was saying. She pulled her lover down into a searing kiss, and proceeded to make passionate love to her once more.

An hour later, they both lay awake, pleasantly, languidly entangled with one another, Solona using Leliana's stomach as a pillow. For no reason in particular, it occurred to the bard, in that moment, that she loved this woman beyond the shadow of a doubt. She opened her mouth to say so, but Solona beat her to it.

"Leliana, I… love you. I know we haven't known each other that long, and I know it's foolish to think about the future. But if I have one, and if you have one, I want them to be together."

Leliana smiled. "You took the words right out of my mouth, my warden. I love you," she said, caressing the mage's cheek. "I love you with all my heart."

Solona nuzzled into her belly, hugging tightly to her hips. "I'm so glad. The last thing I want to do is pressure you. But when I saw you in that onslaught in the Gauntlet, I don't know what came over me. I just… wanted to protect you. And before that, after the boy… I couldn't fix it. I couldn't make you better, and it  _killed_  me."

Leliana ran her hands through Solona's hair, which was getting much too long – she would need to cut it soon – cradling Solona's dear face close to her. " _Je t'aime_ , my warden. I am sorry I was so withdrawn for so many days. I… had an epiphany, in the flames. I…" She didn't dare speak about her vision of herself wearing the garb of the Chantry. Should that future come to pass, it would be after the Blight was dealt with, and they could figure out how they would stay together then. "I am a bard of Orlais,  _and_  a woman of the Chantry, of the Maker. I can be both. There is room. And as Mother Dorothea – or the specter of her – said, sometimes death is necessary, even if it is not strictly deserved. I am good at killing, but I am also good at making the right judgment. I just needed to realize it, get past my guilt for my past. I no longer kill needlessly. But Andraste's Flaming Sword is not merely a trinket."

"Every rose has a thorn, so to speak?"

She smiled again. "Many thorns." She ran her nails over Solona's scalp, causing the mage to almost purr. "My warden, the poet. You could be a bard yourself, my love." The words felt good coming out of her mouth, rolling off her tongue. It made her smile wider.

"Oh, Leliana." Suddenly, the mage was kissing her, their skin sliding along each other, their arms wrapped around the other. The mage pulled back after a moment, breathless, staring into her eyes. "Change this with me?" It was a request, a plea, made while caressing Leliana's cheek with one hand, the other holding her oh so close. "When this is all over, help me change the Circle, the Chantry? I have to do something to change it. I have to build up the Grey Wardens, but I also have to change the Circle, spread Andraste's true message, do what I can to find others like me. Do it with me? Fight for a Chantry that is in line with what Andraste set forth to make?"

 _Perhaps that is what my vision meant? It is impossible to say, but I cannot leave you, Solona. You are my love, and I do not think I could stand being apart from you_. "Yes, Solona. Yes. Just… let us not forget the fight we are currently in, yes? We must defeat the Blight."

"Agreed. But after. After, we will stay together?"

"As you said in the beginning, Solona: you have captured my heart. I could not stay away from you if I tried."

* * *

It took ten days for them to reach Redcliffe. Alistair set a punishing pace, but Solona let him. She knew he was nervous that they'd been gone so long, eager to get the Arl healthy again. He and Morrigan remained oddly silent, the witch leaving him to his thoughts in a completely uncharacteristic manner. Given what Solona could see developing between them – even if they both denied it to themselves – it only served to entertain her.

The night before they would reach Redcliffe (they could  _just_  see the red cliffs in the distance), Solona sat at watch with Zevran. She and Leliana had spoken about her vision in the Gauntlet at length, each of them sharing their realizations that allowed them through the cleansing Flames that so obviously represented the fires that killed – or would have killed, had Hessarian not had such a dramatic change of heart – Andraste.

They had also discussed Leliana's conversation with Wynne, at much more length than they had with Alistair. Solona was surprised, to say the least. She hadn't seen Zevran's jests as anything but just that: jesting. She had no idea he had been serious. Ever since, she had been watching the two of them like a hawk. She had consequently not missed when they would disappear together in the woods, ostensibly to refill water skins or to "go for a walk." She remembered going for a walk: very little walking actually happened on hers and Leliana's walks. The thought should have revolted her – Zevran and Wynne kissing, rubbing up against the trees! – but instead it made her smile a little. Perhaps Wynne really was changing her mind from that conversation they'd had in Redcliffe. The woman could use some tenderness. As could Zevran, no doubt.

Solona sat now looking away from the fire, which was largely unnecessary given the oppressive heat of the day, but which still provided them light, a place to cook, and kept the animals away. Zevran was standing a few feet away, looking up at the stars. She was startled when he spoke.

"I assume it would be naïve to think you and Leliana have not spoken of her and Wynne's conversation."

"Um… yes, we have. Alistair, too."

He nodded. "I thought as much."

"Oh?"

"You are terrible at keeping what you are thinking from your face, Warden. A child could read your expression much of the time." He looked over to her. "You have been staring at the both of us like a teenage boy during his first time at a whorehouse."

Her cheeks heated even as she chuckled at his analogy. She felt a little like a child who had been caught having stolen a plate of cookies, given away by the crumbs all over her robes. It had happened to her as a child. She had never been good at deceit.

"I apologize-"

He held up his hand. "It is fine, Warden. I imagine we will not hide it much longer. It is difficult to hide such a thing when you spend every waking moment with a group of people. But I would appreciate your discretion for the time-being, until it is clear we are open about it. More for our own comfort than any actual discretion."

She nodded. "Of course."

"Since you  _are_  aware, I was wondering if you would be willing to talk?"

She knit her eyebrows, confused. "About what?"

"I have never been in a relationship." He paused, before continuing with a shrug. "I have never stayed with someone for more than a few nights. I could use another man to talk to, but as my only options are virginal Alistair and the ever-implacable Sten, I thought of either you or Leliana. As you are sitting here with me now, and as you are more like a man than  _Leliana_  is, I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind discussing things with me."

Solona snorted. "More manly than Leliana isn't saying much." Visions of the bard's breasts and and the fiery hair over her sex came to mind, as well as the woman's distinctly girlish manners.

Zevran grinned. "Indeed. My options are altogether poor, it is true."

Solona rolled her eyes, chuckling despite herself. "Very well. Ask away. What can I help you with, Zevran?"

He looked back up to the stars. "It is quite simple, if not easy: how do I keep her?"

"Come again?"

"I know how to charm a woman into my bed. I do not wish to do that with Wynne. She is… I wish to cherish her. I  _do_  cherish her. I do not wish to drive her away with flimsy seductions. But if I strip that away…" He shrugged.

"Then you are left with nothing. You are in unfamiliar waters."

He nodded. "I do not know how to charm her into my  _heart_. That is something that  _she_  has done, but I am afraid I have yet to accomplish that."

"Is it really that hard to simply tell her how you feel, Zev?"

He cocked his head to the side, but otherwise let the familiar name go. "You say that as if I have ever done so before in my life, Solona." He smirked. "I am a Crow, or I was. I was raised to be the best at keeping things to myself, at observing others to find their weaknesses. This works as well in seductions as it does in assassinations. But I have a feeling it does not work so well in romance. Not with Wynne. I do not wish to exploit her weaknesses. I wish to  _shelter_  them."

Solona thought for a moment. "How have you handled yourself so far?"

"By not seducing her," he said, his smile sardonic, self-deprecating.

"Wait, are you telling me you two haven't…?"

"We have not known each other, no. We mostly talk, to be honest."

"What do you talk about?"

He came to sit down on the grass next to her. "She tells me about her years in the Circle. She tells me of her regrets. She told me about her first love, and lover, a templar with whom she had a son – both of them taken from her upon his birth."

Solona sat up straight. "That happened to Wynne?! It happens sometimes in the Circle. I had no idea she was one of them, once upon a time…"

He nodded. "Indeed. She has tried to decrease the frequency of it happening to others. I don't need to tell you what she said about all mages' children belonging to the Chantry." She shook her head, still in awe at his statement. "In any event, she speaks to me of her life, of her friends, of her time as an orphan child, of her love of teaching."

"What do you tell her in return?"

He hesitated. "I… do not know  _what_  to tell her. Mostly I listen. My life is…  _very_  different from what she speaks of."

"Well," Solona said, hand on his shoulder to get his attention. "Perhaps you should start talking Zev. I don't think it matters what you say at this point. You just need to get in the habit of being able to share yourself with her, without hesitation."

"You really think that's it? Just start talking?"

"Yes, I do. Talk to her, without the pressure of trying to get her into bed. That part will happen on its own. You're an attractive man, Zevran, and clearly not without your talents in the bedchamber. If I had to bet, I'd say that, at some point, she will come to you, when she's comfortable. And that can only happen when she feels she knows you well enough. When she feels she knows your heart."

He scrutinized her. "I will think on this. Thank you, Warden." He looked away, getting to his feet. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I will make a round of the perimeter. You have given me much to think on." He looked back to her. "I thank you."

* * *

"Grey Wardens approach!"

"Well, I guess that answers the question of whether or not they'll recognize us," Alistair mumbled. Solona just snorted in response.

Zevran looked back up to the ramparts. He hadn't actually spent much time in the castle last time. He had been too injured to come up with them the first time around, Wynne far too exhausted to do much more than make sure he didn't bleed out. When she had awoken, she had taken care of him, but he had still spent that day at Redcliffe Castle sleeping and healing, fevered dreams of Wynne in his bed waking him every hour or so. He wasn't sure how he felt about being here now. It felt a little like things had come full circle – this is where the beginnings of his infatuation for Wynne had occurred, and now he would walk through the gates to the castle hand-in-hand with her.

Or they would if it weren't so damned hot. Coming down the mountain, they had tried to savor the actual  _need_  to wear extra clothing, the chill from the snow atop the mountain requiring cloaks of everyone. They had put them away once they reached the base of the mountain, however, the heat making them unnecessary. It had only gotten hotter since then. Hotter, and much more humid, which was incredibly uncomfortable in his leathers. He longed to remove them and spend a few days in a place where armor was not required at all times.

"How you stand this country is beyond me, especially in those long robes of yours" he said to Wynne as they approached the castle, taking his hair and finally relenting and tying it back all the way.

"Is Antiva so different?" The mage watched him from out the corner of her eye.

He thought for a moment about what Solona had said the night before. It occurred to him that this would be the perfect opportunity to start talking about himself without delving into some of the more morally ambiguous things he had done.

"You wish to know about Antiva? The best way to know it, of course, is to go there. But, alas, because of the Crows I will never go back again." He sighed dramatically, winking at her and eliciting a chuckle before he continued. "It is a warm place, not cold and harsh like it so often is here – not  _now_ , of course… It rains often, and the flowers are always in bloom – or, so the saying goes."

"Is it not true?"

"In some parts, yes. But I prefer the places where it is warm and  _dry_. This humidity does not suit me. I hail from the glorious Antiva City, home to the royal palace. It is a glittering gem amidst the sand, my Antiva City. There is wine, and minstrels, and beautiful men and women. But… you may think this odd, but I miss the leather the most."

"That  _is_  odd."

He laughed. "Indeed. But I mean the smell. As you know I lived in a tiny apartment shared with four other men. But I didn't tell you it was near the leather-making district. I grew accustomed to the stench, despite the humans' constant complaints. To this day, the smell of fresh leather is what reminds me most of home, more than  _anything_  else."

"You speak as though you have been away for a very long time, Zevran. But it has only been a few months, hasn't it?"

"It is true, it has not been that long. But this was my first assignment outside of Antiva, and now I find I will not be able to return. I think of it whenever I am not busy." He paused, feeling Wynne's hand on his shoulder while he thought back to the day before he would leave. He had been incredibly sad, still guilty over what he'd done to Rinna. He had awoken to the last in a long string of naked bodies that he had tried to use to distance himself from the incident, but to no avail. He had been thinking that perhaps he should at least take one piece of home with him when he went to his death. How fitting to wear some Antivan leather whilst he was slaughtered by the Grey Wardens?

"Before I left, I was tempted to spend what little coin I possessed on leather boots I spotted in a store window. Finest Antivan leather, perfect craftsmanship… Ah, but I was a fool to leave them. I thought I could perhaps purchase them for myself as a reward for a job well done. More the fool I, no?" They both knew this was a lie. Zevran had not been planning to return from this job. But the others did not, and they were all listening.

"Do they sell Antivan leather in Ferelden?"

He looked over at Wynne. She had removed her hand from his shoulder while he spoke, but remained close as he led the donkey and cart. "I would imagine so. I have yet to see any, but it is not as though we have stayed anywhere civilized for more than a night. But who knows where we will end up? I certainly did not expect to be vanquished – and then recruited! – by a beautiful Grey Warden." He waited a beat. "And Solona."

Alistair spluttered for a moment. "Wait- Hey!"

A round of laughter followed, and they made their way into Redcliffe Castle in a cheery mood. Right before entering the gate, however, Wynne stopped him.

"Thank you for sharing with me, Zevran."

"But you are most welcome, Wynne."

"I just want you to know," she continued, looking into his eyes, which were on a level with her own, "that I understand you are not accustomed to keeping anyone's counsel but your own. I appreciate how difficult it is for you to… share yourself with me. Please keep doing it. If this is to work, I need to know about you. The good  _and_  the bad."

On impulse, he reached out a hand and caressed her cheek. Drawing her in, he kissed her tenderly, feeling weak in the knees at the soft feel of her lips, the warm taste of her tongue. When he pulled back, he felt breathless, even though it had not been a long kiss. "I will keep trying, my dear Wynne. I am not familiar with it, as you say. But for  _you_ , I wish to try."

She smiled, taking his hand and lowering it, but keeping hold of it. They made their way through the gate, hand-in-hand, ridiculous smiles on their faces.

* * *

Sten watched from near the doorway as the healer, Wynne, practiced her arts over the poisoned leader of this place. He was finally getting the concept that these people used names, and not titles, to identify themselves. It was an utterly foreign concept – he was Sten, as were all other Sten. The title and the name were the same. But these people, they all had  _individual_  names to which they answered, and they were official, not nicknames like they used unofficially under the Qun. He could see that, in the chaotic society in which they lived, it actually made things somewhat less chaotic. But it was still a concept with which he struggled.

The man Wynne was chanting over looked pale, thin, and nothing like a leader to Sten. But he was familiar with what disease did to a person. A kossith who had been sick for that long would have been killed long ago, another found to replace him in his role. But these people's ways were very different from his own, and he was sworn to follow the warden. He was wise enough to know that his job while here was to watch, and to listen, and to learn. Everything was a learning opportunity.

The  _serabaas_  reached into her belt pouch, pulled out a vial, and poured the contents into a cup with water. He approved – if these magical ashes should work, this would be the best way to spread it quickly throughout the man's body. If not, it would certainly not hurt him to drink some water.

She tipped the contents of the cup into his mouth, and he drank. All of it.

At first, nothing happened. The brother from the Chantry, standing next to her, began to get angry, looking as though he may lay a hand on the  _serabaas_. "You have poisoned him further-"

He stopped when Sten took a step toward him, unfolding his arms and humming low in his throat. The man stepped back from the old woman with a yelp, looking around immediately for support.

"The  _serabaas_  is not a fool, priest. She is careful, and knowledgeable, and has saved all of us from perishing many times. You  _will_  keep your hands away from her."

She looked up at him critically. He wasn't the best at reading human facial expressions – they were much more expressive than qunari warriors – but he could tell she was surprised, and perhaps a little confused. "Thank you, Sten," she said, turning back to the Arl.

She focused, chanting again, and he watched from over her shoulder, not trusting the Chantry brother to not call for guards. She stood still, her hands held in place over the man's chest, for several long moments before she moved. As she lifted her head and breathed in to speak, the man moved, his eyes beginning the rapid movement associated with dreaming.

"He is regaining consciousness slowly, as if from a very deep sleep. He should awaken in a few moments."

Sure enough, the arl's eyes blinked open. His mate, the auburn-haired woman who spoke like the warden's mate, gasped, making a great deal of noise. Sten hummed low in his throat again, finding the pitch of her speech grating to his sensitive ears. He backed away, deciding that he could now watch safely from a distance. Folding his arms, he stood vigil once more. He repaid his debts, and he had racked up quite a few with the  _serabaas_  he travelled and fought with. He would make sure she came through the fool Chantry brother's attentions unscathed. He would not fail his kith as he had his last.


	25. Antici-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut warning at the beginning of this chapter.

Solona groaned in pain, causing Leliana to roll her eyes.

"If you hurt so much, you can always get healing."

"You  _know_  it doesn't work like that, Leli. Even when I heal myself, I'm still stuck with bruising."

It was true. Leliana had seen it. After a fight, Solona would come to bed sometimes covered in bruises, whereas Leliana's pale skin was rarely marred by anything – the joy of being an archer, small, and fast.

"Fine, fine. Lie down, I will rub your back."

"Oh, bless you, you are the most beautiful-" Solona kissed her "-amazing-" another kiss "-wonderful woman-"

"Enough!" Leliana giggled, batting her away. "Take off your shirt and lie on the bed. If I'm going to let your horse toss you, then the least I can do is try to relieve some of your aches and pains."

The arl was returning to health rapidly with Wynne's attention. Since their return several days before, it felt as though Leliana could not get a moment alone with Solona, however. Eamon had declared the two wardens Champions of Redcliffe, and sent invitations for a fete in their honor. Solona hadn't been happy about the delay, but Leliana had explained why it was necessary.

"The Arl must show that Loghain  _failed_ ," she had explained. "Eamon must show that he is healthy, must show that Loghain failed in his assassination attempt, and spread word of his treachery and  _your_  good deeds. It lends credence to the story that it was Loghain, and not  _you_ , who was the traitor at Ostagar. The groundwork for the Landsmeet begins here, Solona."

She had then explained that Eamon's gift to them – horses for everyone – would allow them to make up the time. It would be a worthy investment of time, in the end.

There was only one problem with this plan.

"I don't know how to ride," Solona had confessed before looking over to Wynne. "Do you?"

"No," Wynne had answered, shaking her head.

"How do you not know how to ride a horse?" Alistair had been incredulous.

"We didn't exactly get a lot of chances out on an island in the middle of a damned  _lake_ ," was the heated response.

Leliana, Alistair, and Zevran had spent the last three days teaching the two Circle mages how to ride a horse. Alistair and Leliana were of the opinion that the only way to tame Solona's stallion – a kingly gift, no doubt, but willful, to say the least – was to let them have it out. It had resulted in Solona being thrown more times than Leliana could now count.

Solona had complained that Wynne did not have to learn this way. Leliana had replied that Wynne had been gifted a calm, sturdy mare, who had accepted her as a rider with no problem. The mage-warden had simply glared over at Zevran sitting behind Wynne on the mare, making sure her grip with her hands and feet were correct.  _And_  getting as physically close as he could at every opportunity, Leliana did not fail to note.

So truly the least she could do was help Solona relax enough to sleep well.

The mage's shirt came up and off, and Leliana was once again momentarily stunned into inactivity. The sight before her was just so marvelous: the chiseled muscles across her shoulders and down her back, incredibly toned arms accompanied by small but perky breasts. Solona's body, even when she hadn't been all muscle, had always been rather straight all the way down, without a lot of the curves that often marked a woman feminine and attractive. But her tall, proud bearing, coupled with the  _hint_  of feminine curvature – even with all that hard muscle – made for a woman Leliana found more attractive than any she had ever been with.

Solona smirked at her, deliberately stretching out as she lay on her stomach on the bed. The bed was large, as was the room – the opposite of what Leliana was granted. They had each been given a room, and when she was led to hers, she found her things had already been delivered. It had been easy enough to simply pick them up – she didn't have much – and tote them over to Solona's room, which was quite large, as befitted a Champion of Redcliffe, apparently. She didn't mind, but she did rather enjoy scandalizing the servants that first morning when they came in to draw a bath and found the two of them lying naked together. Served them right for not knocking.

"Are you going to stare all night?"

She shook herself free of her reflection, glaring at her lover with an amused smirk. She sauntered over, enjoying the way Solona's eyes immediately snapped to her swaying hips. "That's better," she said, her smile knowing. "Now, stay here, I'll be right back."

She retrieved the bathing and massage oil she had requested the first day, which now lived in the small, attached bathing chamber. Returning to the bed, she immediately straddled Solona's thighs, pouring oil into her hands and rubbing them together before beginning to rub the stiffness from her lover's muscles.

The feeling of the oil between the two of them was wonderful, and she got lost a little in tracing the contours of Solona's back. The mage was indeed full of knots, and seemed to be genuinely appreciating having them rubbed out. It was, however, incredibly distracting to have the woman moaning her appreciation, out loud and abundantly.

It  _did_  give her an idea, though.

"Take off your trousers."

"Wh- what?"

"You heard me," Leliana answered, moving so Solona could comply. Fully naked, she resumed her position, Leliana once again straddling her legs, though lower this time. Pouring more oil, she began to knead Solona's lower back. She moved down to her buttocks, smirking at Solona's moans of pleasure.

Here was the tricky part, though. "Do not move or speak," she instructed. They had yet to play any games like this, but Leliana had long ago accepted that her sexual tastes were… varied, to say the least. As much as she loved making love to Solona, she missed bedroom  _play_. And she had only ever gotten to be in the dominant role with her meaningless flings. It was high time to introduce it, and she wanted to direct it. Marjolaine had never allowed it. Solona would. They trusted each other enough for that.

"What do you mean-"

"Shh, Solona. I said no talking."

She began kneading the backs of her lover's thighs, but altered her pressur. She teased here, tickled there, but only momentarily. It was having the effect she was hoping for, however: Solona was becoming visibly aroused, her fingers twisting into the sheets, little whimpers escaping her throat as she jumped with each of Leliana's touches.

After a time, it became clear that Solona was losing her self-control. She was behaving herself, however, not saying a word, not asking for anything, and so Leliana felt it was time to reward her for her good behavior. She shifted one hand under Solona's hip, a gentle pressure getting Solona's hips angled exactly how she wanted them. She let out a soft "ah" when Solona's sex was revealed, already parted and practically  _dripping_  with arousal. Making sure her hands were coated in the oil – which she knew from experience was safe to use in this manner – she coaxed a searching finger between the delicious folds now presented to her.

"Maker, Leliana!"

"Shh, love. No talking, remember?"

"I- Oh, Leli…"

Leliana grinned. She added a second finger rather rapidly, keeping her hand under the mage's hip to keep her backside angled correctly. The mage had the sheets bunched in her fists and her feet squirming where they were trapped underneath the bard. She bit back several cries, finally burying her face in the sheets to muffle herself.

"That's right, love. When you behave, you are rewarded." Leliana was compensated for her words by a particularly violent buck up into her hand, causing her to go much deeper than she had been. Solona cried out in answer, and Leliana began to work her in earnest. A third finger was added, and she leaned over further, trailing her free hand into that dark thatch of hair, seeking out that beautiful bundle of nerves she knew she would find right…

"Maker!"

There. It took less than a minute for Solona to climax, incoherent cries escaping her lips. Leliana's hand was coated in her lover's fluid, and she felt her own core pulse with need.

But she wasn't done. Oh no, not yet. She continued to work Solona long past when she would normally have stilled. As Solona began panting and groaning and moaning once more, incredulous cries escaping her, Leliana coaxed a fourth finger inside of her lover. Normally there just wasn't enough lubrication to try something like this, but with her hand coated in oil as it was, along with Solona's fluids from her release, well. Now was the time to try.

"I… Leli… I…"

"Did you have something to say, Solona?"

"Fuck…"

She chuckled, redoubling her efforts, working the mage like she did her lute. She pumped her fingers in and out, her other hand teasing that bundle of nerves. The sight of the mage writhing underneath her, her own fingers disappearing inside of her, the mage's fists clenched as tightly in the sheets as her core was around Leliana's fingers, made the bard almost cry out with her own need. And being in control of this, having the powerful mage under her – an arcane warrior, descended from the backbone of Andraste's Army – surrendering her control… it thrilled her all the way down to her core.

Finally, she relented, stroking Solona hard and fast. All it took was a few strokes for the mage to crest once more, her whole body going rigid as she called out Leliana's name. The bard's body coated the insides of her own thighs as she watched, feeling her lover climax around her hand, hearing incoherent cries fall from her lips.

It took a few minutes for Solona's breathing to return to normal. While she was still recovering, utterly boneless and unable to move, Leliana pulled out of her and quickly removed her own clothing. Climbing into bed next to her lover, she pushed against her. Solona immediately curled into her, giving her a sloppy kiss, murmuring something about taking the oil with them on the road, and burying her face in the bard's skin. She was always like this as she came down from climax, needing to have as much of their skin touching as possible – especially her face.

Her breathing calmed, and Leliana began to get excited, her heart pounding with the anticipation. She was so aroused that she probably only needed a minute of attention before she would experience her own crest. Her body pulsed, her core clenched around nothing. Need filled her. She was so close already.

But then she realized that Solona's breathing was a little  _too_  regular.

"Solona?"

No answer.

A gentle shake. "Solona?"

A sleepy mumble as the mage pulled her closer.

She was asleep.  _Asleep!_

" _Merde_."

Leliana settled in, squeezing her thighs together, wishing she had her lover between them. Accepting that she would just have to have reciprocation tomorrow, she got as comfortable as she could and tried not to focus on the feel of Solona's skin against hers, which was distracting, so that she could fall asleep.

* * *

She awoke to deft fingers sliding over her skin.

"Solona!"

She opened her eyes to find the mage grinning above her, her hands now sliding over her more insistently.

"Good morning, darling."

"What- oh!" Leliana exclaimed, one her nipples having just been pinched. "What are you doing?"

"Well," she answered, tweaking one of Leliana's nipples again. "You were so giving last night, and I completely fell asleep on you. I thought perhaps I could return the favor." Upon finishing, she took Leliana's nipple into her mouth, sucking sharply, kneading it with her teeth.

Leliana groaned, arching her back to push her breast further into Solona's mouth, her hands tangling in her freshly cut hair and pulling her closer. Her body felt afire, her skin burning wherever Solona touched it. Clearly, her arousal had not dimmed with sleep.

Solona released her breast with a slight  _pop_ , kissing her way down her chest and stomach. Leliana tried to calm her breathing, but her body was overriding her, and she couldn't help but pant and whimper, squirming underneath her lover. Solona reached the apex between her legs, chuckling deep in her throat as she lowered her head.

A knock on the door interrupted her, Alistair's voice sounding through it. "Solona, I need to speak with you."

Leliana cursed. "Maker's breath, you  _have_  to be kidding me?!"

Solona looked over at the door with her eyes narrowed. "Can't it wait, like, five minutes?"

Leliana snorted. "If that," she breathed.

"Mmmm, I like the sound of that," Solona murmured, lowering her head once more.

"I'm sorry, but it really can't," Alistair replied loudly through the door. "Arl Eamon wants to speak with us. You should put on something nice." A pause. "I tried to get him to wait, but I couldn't."

Leliana's head hit the pillow. "Do you think he will mind if I gut him?"

Solona laughed. "If you stride out there how you are now, he might not. Nor would he see the dagger in your hand." She pulled herself up, kissing Leliana between the breasts, then moving up further to kiss her on the lips. "I promise I'll make it up to you after whatever this meeting is."

Leliana sighed, resigned. "I shall just have to wait. Go on, put on your blue shirt and your suede breeches from last night – those are probably the nicest things you have clean."

Solona kissed her once more before getting up off the bed, calling out, "I'll be there in five minutes, Alistair," as she wen. She headed over to her travel bag. "Is my vest clean enough, do you think?"

Leliana turned to her side, propping herself up on one elbow. "I think so, yes."

Solona looked up from her bag, stopping dead for a moment. "I can't believe I'm leaving you here like  _this_. You're just  _exquisite_."

Leliana smirked, knowing exactly what she was doing to her lover. She lay on her side, one hip jutting into the air, completely naked, the sunlight through the window just starting to reach her pale skin. "Neither can I," she replied, raising an eyebrow and stroking her hand over her hip. "I may just need to take care of myself while you're away…" Her hand crept down toward the red thatch of hair over her sex.

Solona was on her in an instant. "Please, please don't!" She kissed her roughly, wrapping her arms tightly around Leliana's waist. "I promise I'll make it worth the wait. As soon as we're through."

Leliana giggled. "Yes, yes! All right! Go, before you are late!"

She was released, and she watched as Solona pulled on her trousers, shirt, boots, and, lastly, the vest she hadn't worn since the Tower. Leliana felt a little shiver go down her spine at the sight, and she fervently wished she could take the mage and drag her back to bed. Instead, she got to her feet, kissing Solona tenderly before sending her out the door to meet with Alistair and Arl Eamon. Sighing once again, she turned to wash up in the basin before going to break her fast.

"I sincerely hope she meant it when she said she'd finish what she started…"

* * *

It was time for the midday meal when she saw Solona again. They met in the great dining hall, both wardens falling to their meals with gusto. A servant led in Leliana after a morning of wandering the castle. She'd spent some time sitting with Connor, watching Wynne train him in his arts. They weren't yet sure what they would do with him; he needed a teacher, but the Circle was so harsh, and with the new information they'd stumbled upon, both Solona and Wynne were hesitant to advise sending him there. But it  _was_  the likeliest place for him to be safe if Wynne or Solona couldn't teach him. His parents had decided to let Wynne teach and observe him while the group stayed at the castle, and abide by whatever advice she gave at the end.

" _Bonjour_ ," Leliana greeted, sliding onto the bench next to her lover. She slid one hand up her arm and neck, burying her fingers in the mage's hair, hoping to remind her of her promised afternoon activity. She got only a grunted acknowledgment in return. She removed her hand, eyebrows knit, trying not to feel hurt or rejected. This wasn't like Solona at all. "Is- is something wrong?"

Alistair answered for her. "We had the longest meeting in the world with Eamon. We figured out what to do with the Landsmeet, how long it might take to secure the help of the elves and the dwarves, and we talked about each bann and arl in Ferelden at some length."

"That does sound tedious," she conceded, looking over to the black storm cloud that was her lover. "It must have dragged on for hours."

"That's not the part that has her like that," Alistair countered. "No, at the end of all of it, Eamon asked for our input on what he should do with the prisoner."

Leliana's heart sank. Jowan. They hadn't discussed him much. Solona was angry, but at the same time, the mage understood his turning to blood magic to avoid losing his love, to avoid the mindless existence of the tranquil. She didn't know what should be done with him. Blood mages should be put to death, and yet most of them turned to blood magic out of desperation. Was there no room for rehabilitation in the world of magic? Even murderers could see the error of their ways, reform. It seemed unfair to Leliana that there was no leniency for mages.

"Did you make a decision?" she asked

Solona swallowed her food, turning her head to stare down at her plate. "He's to be put to death."

"Oh, Solona." Leliana reached for her, but she shrugged away.

"I just… I need to be alone for a while. Maybe I'll go talk to him. I'd rather he found out from me than a guard or something." She got up, kissing Leliana's cheek before leaving the hall. The kiss helped, made it clear that she was not unhappy with Leliana at all. Still, the bard couldn't help but be slightly disappointed.

"Well, now I know what it would take to make her leave a meal," Leliana muttered, looking down at the mage's mostly-full plate.

"I'll eat it for her," Alistair said with a wink, despite his concerned eyes, grabbing the plate and moving it next to his own.

Leliana sighed, putting her chin in her hands and her elbows on the table. "This is not how I pictured this afternoon going…"

Alistair cleared his throat. "Sorry for stealing her away like that. Eamon was going to send someone to fetch her. He's not accustomed to being made to wait for anything, and I felt like perhaps now is not the time to assert that she is not under his command. He's still abed, after all."

"I understand, Alistair," she assured him, finally beginning to pick at her own plate.

"I… was actually hoping to speak with you about it," he said, taking another bite of his meal.

"About what?"

"Well," Alistair started, looking away while he gathered his thoughts. "I suppose I should start with the Gauntlet. The only person I've talked to about this has been Morrigan, of all people. But… well, to get out of the flames, did you have to pass some kind of test or something?"

Leliana thought for a moment. "Yes, I suppose you could call it a test. I was… shown my vision, in a different form. I had a realization. Then I was allowed through."

"I had a realization, too." He shifted in his seat, adjusting his shirt. "I heard a voice, sort of, telling me that I was worthy, and then I was allowed through."

"What did you realize, if you don't mind me asking?"

He smiled a strained smile. "That in order to change things – the Circle, the Chantry – I had to take the throne if that's what Eamon wanted. And it is." He sighed. "It's just… it's the only way I can  _do_  anything. I've never been able to do anything, Leliana."

She smiled. "I understand. And I'm proud of you, Alistair. But… what did you need to speak about?"

"Well, Eamon is glad I'm open to the idea. Solona is… I don't think she knows what to think, which is about where I am, too. It's hard to picture me as king when I'm a wanted fugitive." He chuckled a little, shaking his head. "But Eamon… I don't think he realizes that he's not in charge of all of this."

She cocked her head to the side. "How do you mean?"

Alistair sighed. "He's ordering us around like we're his soldiers or something. I don't know. Solona will be the Warden-Commander of Ferelden. We talked about it yesterday, deciding that we would make decisions regarding Grey Warden business together, but that if we had to present a command structure, she would be at the top."

Leliana nodded. "Solona told me as much."

He smiled. "Good. As the Warden-Commander, or even just a warden, she is not under the jurisdiction of any ruler, though cooperating is definitely stressed. But the problem is, Eamon is having a… hard time grasping it, I think. Every time she says something decisive, he looks to me for confirmation. Every time he decides something, he looks to me for agreement, and then completely ignores the nod or shake of the head she gives him. He bowls her over as soon as she starts to speak, and just generally…"

Leliana's eyes narrowed. "Treats her like a woman?"

"Yes!" He sagged. "Solona is incredibly frustrated, though I don't think she realizes that it's because she is a woman that he overlooks her – I think she thinks it's because she's young, and a mage. It embarrasses me, but I don't know how to talk to him about it."

She grew thoughtful. "If you are to be king, Alistair, you will need to learn to speak with your advisors, who will undoubtedly be senior to you in age, to correct them and their behavior. Luckily, you do not have the same ideas about women in power as  _he_  does, and you have come to me.  _I_  know exactly how to get him to see the error of his ways."

"Oh?"

She smiled. "Indeed."

Two hours later, they were seated in Isolde's sunroom. An elven servant poured tea for them, offering biscuits before silently exiting the room. Leliana followed the woman with her eyes, wondering at how she never quite noticed how much like statues the elven servants were treated as compared with the human ones.

"The elves, they make excellent servants,  _non_?"

Leliana's head whipped around to look at Lady Isolde. She was very beautiful, simply radiant now with both her husband and son alive and well. The bard smiled, not really sure what to say in response to that.

"The elf you have traveling with you… he makes a good servant for the wardens?"

Alistair choked on his tea. "Zevran? A servant?"

"I'm sorry, is he not?"

"No, my Lady," Leliana replied, placing a hand on Alistair's knee so he wouldn't say anything else. "Zevran helps us fight against the darkspawn. He is not a servant."

"Oh… that would explain why Wynne was so indignant when I asked him to clear the dishes from the lunch she shared with Connor…"

Leliana blinked. "Oh? How did  _he_  react?"

"He cleared the table! It is very confusing…"

"I am sure he simply did what was easiest. It is his way. Besides that, I'm sure it provided ample opportunity to speak with some of the servants."

Isolde knit her brows. "Why would he wish to do that, if he is not one himself?"

"Information, most likely. In his former occupation, information was the most valuable form of currency."

"You seem to know a great deal about this, Lady Leliana."

Leliana smiled. "In my former occupation as a bard, information was everything."

Alistair flinched. "You- you just told her, just like that?"

"Shhh, Alistair, it is all right," she said, placing her hand upon his shoulder to calm him. "I am at peace with it."

"It is all right, Alistair," Isolde said, turning a glare upon him. It had been apparent since their return that, even after saving Connor, Teagan, and Eamon, she still was not pleased with his presence. "I know enough of Orlesian politics to know that the bards are often used cruelly. If he was anything like that, then I can understand his willingness to simply… go with the flow, I believe Fereldens say. And you as well, Lady Leliana."

Leliana squeezed Alistair's shoulder to keep him silent. "Surely such a shrewd woman would wish to help us with a little problem, then?"

" _Une problemme?_  What is wrong?"

"The arl seems to have somewhat… unenlightened views about how to treat Alistair's fellow warden," she explained, again squeezing the man's shoulder to keep him quiet.

Isolde picked up on Leliana's meaning instantly, her eyes narrowing. "I see. He has had problems with this in the past. He has learned not to push  _me_  around. Perhaps he needs reminding about  _other_  women…"

"It would be wonderful if we could find a way for him to see that it is Solona who is the one in charge of the Grey Wardens."

"It is not Alistair?" Isolde asked, eyes wide in surprise. "I thought he was senior?"

Alistair shook his head. "No, Lady Isolde. Solona and I confer and come to agreements, but ultimately it is  _she_  who leads us. When we are able to rebuild our Order, it will be  _her_  who is called Warden-Commander."

Isolde's eyes softened a little as he spoke. "You… are a good man, Alistair. I have let my own jealousy cloud my eyes, I think. You will make a good king, to realize that the women in your country are just as clever and capable as the men."

Leliana smiled. She had been hoping to clear that up, too. She couldn't help but be proud of her ability to orchestrate Isolde's realization. "So you will speak with the arl?"

Isolde sat up a little straighter. "Indeed. I will remind him who saved his son, who walked through the Flames to get to Andraste's Ashes for him. It was not  _only_  Alistair." She looked from Alistair to Leliana. "It was two mages, three women, an elf… He is not the only one who has had some assumptions challenged." She smiled. "I assure you: by this time tomorrow, he will understand  _exactly_  who is in charge when it comes to this Blight."

"Thank you, my Lady," Leliana said, taking a sip of her tea and allowing the conversation to switch to more mundane, frivolous things. There was going to be a fete the next day, after all.

* * *

Solona woke up to lips on her neck, a hand on her breast.

She smiled. "Good morning, love."

The lips pressed to her throat curved into a smile. " _Bonjour, mon amour_ ," Leliana replied, tweaking a nipple before moving her hand lower.

"I suppose it's time I finally repay you for your kindness?"

"Mmmmm, yes please," the bard murmured. She slid atop the mage, her kiss long and languid. Her hands explored Solona with abandon, stoking the coals of the mage's desire into a raging inferno within minutes.

Someone banged on the door.

" _Incroyable_!"

"Solona! Leliana! I need you!"

"Dammit, Alistair," Solona yelled back. "What in hell do you need  _now_?!"

A pause. "I'm going to be the next king, there is a party tonight, and I don't know how to dance."

" _Merde_ ," Leliana muttered before pushing herself up.

"What? You're getting up? Surely he can wait ten minutes?"

Leliana fixed her with a sardonic look. "I want you for much, much longer than that, my love. We can… return to our previous activities later this morning, all right?"

Five minutes later, they were dressed and opening the door.

Solona began speaking immediately. "What do you mean you don't know how to dance? Didn't you grow up here?"

"Yes, as a  _stable boy_ ," Alistair said, frustration clear on his face. "You don't teach stable boys how to dance, even if they're the king's bastard son."

"It is all right, Solona. We will simply teach him some of the more simple moves," Leliana said, a hand on Solona's arm.

"But the party is  _tonight_! He couldn't have said something  _sooner_? And… we had plans for this morning…"

Alistair turned bright red. "Ah! I'm sorry for interrupting, okay?! Please stop talking about bed sport and  _help me_!"

Leliana's grip on her arm tightened. "There is time later, Solona, as I said. Look at him." She smirked. "He's so pathetic."

Solona snorted a laugh before dropping her head. "I know, I just… I abandoned you last night…" She had spent the afternoon speaking with Jowan. They had come to a place of peace, even if she was still angry with him. He had made it clear that none of it was her fault, and asked her that, should she ever see Lilley again, that she let her know he loved her. The warden had sworn it, silently swearing to herself to do her best to find the woman. She deserved to know his fate, even if she, too, was angry.

Leliana had been asleep when Solona had come to bed, however, making it so she  _still_  was unable to reciprocate from the evening before. Add that with this morning's and the previous morning's aborted attempts, and Leliana had to be so desperate that she was probably ready to rub herself to release on Solona's thigh. "We will have time this afternoon, Solona. You can repay your debts then, yes?"

Solona sighed. "Very well."

What followed was four tortuous hours of finding out just how uncoordinated Alistair's feet were without a sword and shield in his hands. In the stables. With the beast who usually tried to throw her from its saddle. She swore it laughed at her the entire time, tossing its head and snorting.

At one point, Alistair asked her how she knew how to dance.

"We teach ourselves many things in the Tower," she said, cursing when he stepped on her foot again.

"Sorry!"

"I think it is time for a different tactic," Leliana said then, removing Solona from his death-grip. The bard squared off with him as though they were sparring, his feet instantly taking on the appropriate stance. "Both of you: face me."

"But you'll just put us in the dust, like usual," Alistair said, glancing over at Solona. The mage just shrugged and dropped into a combat stance, as well.

"Just do it and trust me," Leliana said. "And do not attack." Solona smirked. Maker, she wished she could drag that woman off to bed rather than be here, with the smell of horse dung and the heat of the stables. She'd given up on that long ago, however, at this point simply hoping that her clothing wouldn't be too dirty or smelly before the fete tonight.

Leliana circled around them, and immediately Solona could see what she was doing. Her feet had a rhythm, her hips swaying to the inaudible beat, as well. She started to hum a melody as soon as Alistair's feet joined hers, and within a minute or two, Solona placed herself in his arms, continuing the rhythm.

He laughed. They were suddenly dancing. "That's it?! Why did I think it was so hard?"

Leliana smiled, no longer moving, simply clapping the rhythm for them. "Because you built it up in your head. But as you can see, there is very little difference between this and sparring. Just – don't try to spar with any of the ladies with whom you might dance tonight, yes?"

"I don't know," Solona said, raising her eyebrow at him. "That would certainly be entertaining."

She jumped away when he released her, clearly intending to swat her on the arm. Laughing, she swept Leliana up and danced her around the stables, leading her in a rhythm that was much faster than the one they'd been dancing to previously. The bard laughed, following Solona easily, Alistair joining their laughter as he watched.

"You lead and follow so well, my love!" Leliana exclaimed, laughing again as Solona continued to lead her around the stable. She loved hearing those words fall from Leliana's lips. They made her swell to think how lucky she was.

"I've been looking everywhere for you, and I find the three of you locked up in the heat with the horses." Solona stopped, looking to the entrance to see Morrigan frowning from across the doorway. "I have been sent to find you," the witch explained.

" _You_  were sent to find us?" Alistair was dubious.

"It was not my first choice. But when Wynne and Zevran could not find you, they asked me to help. As my other option was to watch over the boy, who could not be left alone, I agreed instead to come find you myself."

"Well," Solona said, releasing Leliana and going to stand in front of the witch. "Here we are. What is needed of us, and who needs it?"

Morrigan raised an eyebrow. "I believe it is time to get ready for this ridiculous  _event_  that is to occur tonight."

* * *

Solona took in her reflection. There had been a snafu when she first came to get ready – the servants had attempted to get her into a dress. She hadn't worn a true dress since she was five, some party or wedding or something she'd attended in Lothering with her parents, before she'd been sent to the Circle. She wasn't about to wear one tonight, or ever again, for that matter.

She had sent them away, bathed, and was just despairing of having something to wear that was anywhere near as nice as the dress when Alistair had appeared at her door, looking quite handsome and kingly. He had led her to his room and proceeded to have the servants that had been dressing him pick out something for her. Now she stood in front of his mirror, giving the final approval to the black hose, blood-red shirt, and brown suede vest with matching boots they had selected for her.

Alistair nearly had a heart attack when the servants offered to cover the tattoo on her face for her. Solona laughed at him, explaining to them that she would not be covering the tattoo, that it was a mark of her status. It was not technically a lie – the tattoo indeed marked her status as apostate – but she did not clarify, and they did not ask her to.

As they left, she addressed the future king. "I did not realize quite how elves were treated outside of the Circle."

"It's atrocious, really," he said, his eyebrows knit. "I hope it's something I can start to change, when I'm king." He looked to her as if he'd only just taken in what she'd said. "Wait, 'outside of the Circle'? How are elves treated  _inside_  it?"

Solona shrugged. "Shitty. But no different from how the  _human_  mages are treated. We do all our own work; we have no servants. Elves in the Circle are mages. Those who come later in life tend to be a bit more bitter toward humans, but it clears up pretty quickly when it's made clear they're not to be servants. I've had more than one person explain to me how it is outside the Circle, but I'd never  _seen_  it before. No wonder Wynne was so incredulous on Zevran's behalf yesterday – she's never seen it either, and, personally, if someone treated Leliana like that, I would have  _words_ to say."

Alistair snorted a laugh. "I bet you would. Now, come on, handsome Lady," he said, offering her his arm and smiling cheekily at her. "We have a party to greet, as Grey Wardens, and commanders in our own right."

"So," Solona said as they headed down, her arm in his. "What did the more wild members of our party decide to do?"

Alistair grinned. "Well, Morrigan changed into a raven, leaving her clothing in the hallway and flying out the window. Gave the servants quite a fright. But I think Connor is now hers forever."

"She claims to not like frivolity, but she sure does love making a spectacle of herself!" Solona exclaimed, laughing at the image painted for her.

"Agreed. Sten took Max to his room when the kennel master started complaining. Apparently, your mabari has an incredibly high sex drive, and was quite capable of climbing his way into the kennel where all the female hunting dogs are kept. The arl is going to have quite a few litters of half-mabari war dogs."

Solona winced. "Sorry. I'm not used to having to keep an eye on him. He operates on his own when we're out. He's less of a dog and more a companion who can't talk."

"Or won't," Alistair said with a nod, citing the oft-quoted wisdom that mabari were smart enough to know to keep quiet. "I know what you mean. I think we all forgot about him once we got back."

"Do you think we'll have a problem with him and the horses?" Solona couldn't help but be a little hopeful. If he did have a problem with them, she would choose him over the horses with no qualms whatsoever.

Alistair shook his head, however, crushing her hopes. "His old master was a warrior in the army. He would have been trained around horses from the time he was a pup."

 _Damn_. Their time to chat was over, however, as they could see the arl and arlessa up ahead waiting for them to arrive at the entrance to the fete.

The "greeting" was actually Solona and Alistair being introduced to every guest that came through the door. It tried her patience, as she could not even stand with Leliana, but Alistair did at least have funny anecdotes to share about some of the guests. No one truly important was in attendance, but every minor noble from the areas surrounding Redcliffe was there. It was hoped that it would be enough to begin to cast doubt on Queen Anora's regent – Loghain.

Some of the more eligible daughters were introduced to Alistair, all of them giving him a healthy view of their cleavage as they curtsied. Solona teased him, he turned bright red, and suddenly the mage felt a little better for having to stand there with him. At least she could tease him mercilessly. That never grew old.

Finally, it was over, and Alistair led her in a dance. It was a little strange to be so close to him, being led around while wearing clothes usually reserved for men, and, being the kind of person she was, she commented on it. He agreed, but also made it clear that he was most comfortable with her and Leliana, preferring their company over anyone else's.

"You're like a brother – or a sister? – to me," he said. "Yes, it's a little peculiar to be dancing with you, but dear Maker it's better than those  _children_  whose parents clearly want me to marry them."

"Yes, that is a little disturbing," Solona agreed as the dance ended. They both bowed to each other, snickering at Solona's utter dismissal of femininity for the evening. "All right, let me go find Leli? I'll dance with her, then let you have a turn."

"The implications of that last statement are a little disturbing," he called after her, to which she replied with a wink that had him both bright red and laughing as she hurried away.

Unfortunately, just as she spotted Leliana's red hair, just hoping to see what clothes she had been provided, she was intercepted by the Lady Isolde.

"Warden! May I presume to ask this dance?"

Solona smiled. "Of course, Lady Isolde. Shall I lead or follow?"

The woman giggled. "I would prefer to follow."

She took the woman in her arms, making an apologetic face toward Leliana, who had just spotted her, and began moving the arlessa through the dance floor. "I wanted to let you know, Lady Solona, that you should no longer have any trouble with my husband."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Leliana and Alistair came to me to let me know that he was dismissing you because you are a woman. I have… handled him."

She turned the woman under her arm, pulling her back in and moving around once more. "I had no idea that was the reason. I thought perhaps it was because I am a mage…"

The arlessa shook her head. "No, it is because I unfortunately married a rather stubborn, old-fashioned man who forgets that women are just as capable as men. I am sorry that he treated you so."

Solona shrugged as best she could while continuing to lead Lady Isolde in their dance. "It is quite all right, my Lady. Truth be told, I am somewhat out of my element. The hierarchy within the Circle is quite different – based on merit and age, rather than sex or status at birth."

"Well, you have good friends to look out for you. I am glad to see Alistair with someone who is so clever and cunning. She will serve him well as king. And they make such an adorable couple. It is almost too bad they cannot marry if he takes the throne."

Solona stopped dead in her dance for a moment. "Alistair and… Leliana? I'm sorry?"

"Are they not together?"

Solona began to move again, shaking her head. "No, my Lady. They are not. Leliana is…" She felt her cheeks heat. How did she claim Leliana without actually  _claiming_  her like some object? " _I_  am with her. We are… an item."

"Oh…" Solona turned Isolde once more, pulling her in.

"What, uh, gave you the impression they were together?"

"The lady's room has been empty. Of all your companions, Alistair seemed the most likely to me to be the one whose bed she shared. And when they came to me about you together… I suppose I simply assumed. I apologize I took their friendship for something more."

Solona grinned. "No apology necessary, my Lady. I think we'll all get a laugh out of it, truth be told."

They finished their dance amicably, and when the music ended, Solona escorted Isolde off the floor like a proper gentleman. She made a passable bow, and when she straightened, Leliana was next to her. The bard looked absolutely stunning in a deep blue, satin dress, with matching shoes much like the ones she had described to Solona that one night, weeks and weeks ago. "If you do not mind, my Lady, I would steal the warden away for myself."

"Yes, of course, Lady Leliana. I should check on my husband…" And she wandered off, carrying herself with a grace that Solona was sure she herself would not be able to pull off in that dress.

Leliana's hand found hers. "Dance with me, my warden?"

Solona smiled, struck momentarily speechless, looking down into those deep blue eyes. The look on Leliana's face… She nodded, leading her out onto the dance floor.

Their dance was… almost scandalous. Leliana kept pressing very close, her hand sometimes wandering to very suggestive places. Solona only ever saw her in this mood when they were both naked in their tent. She liked it, though it was disconcerting in this context.

The dance over, Leliana took her hand and immediately began leading her away. Solona followed, enjoying the view of the bard's retreating form. When they left the party altogether, however, entering the castle from the courtyard, the warden spoke up. "Leli? Um, where are we going?"

* * *

Zevran rolled the dice again. He had decided that it would be easier for everyone if an elf didn't attend the ball as a guest. He had made his way to town instead, not even having to talk himself into this game of chance. The townspeople remembered him, and the free drinks had come in a steady stream all night.

The door to the tavern opened, causing everyone to look up. Zevran took advantage of their lost attention, spying the loosely-held cards of his fellows. He cursed to himself when he saw that his neighbor had a better hand than he did. But at least that meant that he could fold, not roll the dice again, and not lose any more coin to the pot. Or perhaps he could bluff the man into folding himself…

He finally looked up to see who had come into the inn. His heart skipped; it saw Wynne standing by the door, absolutely radiant in a dress of green silk, looking almost naked without her ever-present staff and rucksack full of herbs and other supplies. She was standing just inside the door, looking around for something. His heart sped back up, slamming hard into his chest, when he realized that is was  _he_  that she searched for.

"I fold," he said without preamble, picking up his mug of ale and downing the rest of it before leaving the table, ignoring the disappointed calls he got from his fellow card-players.

"Wynne." He spoke her name as he approached, coming to stand before her, unable to keep a smile off his face. "You look absolutely stunning. Why are you not at the party?"

She smiled, taking his hands. "I stayed for a little while. But there was some very important company I was missing. Why did you not come, Zevran? I had to ask a servant where you had gone."

He shrugged. "I figured it would be best if we did not have every single noble asking me for a drink all night," he answered, wondering inwardly at how he had been able to escape this treatment in Antiva. The arm of the Crows was long, indeed, if it had spared him this treatment.

Wynne narrowed her eyes. "All the more reason to stay, make them see that you are not just one step above a slave."

"Please, Wynne. I am at peace with it. I have no desire to spend my time that way anymore." He sighed. "In truth, parties remind me of my time as a Crow, and that is not what I want to be reminded of while I am at your side."

Her features softened, and she reached out a hand to cup his cheek. "I am sorry. I hadn't even thought of that."

He took her hand, suddenly aware of how quiet the common room had become. He was new to this, but he knew he did not want this side of himself, being vulnerable for a woman, tainted by the hollering men tended to do when in a group. "Come, let us find somewhere more private."

"Room in the back's available," the innkeeper told him quietly as he passed. "Free of charge. I remember what you and the wardens did when the town was bein' attacked."

Zevran nodded his thanks. He winced when someone whistled, a lewd comment following them as they made their way to the back of the hallway.

"I apologize," he said as he opened the door. "I forget how unseemly men can be when they are all together like that. Hardly appropriate for a lady of your caliber."

He turned around to shut the door, but found it taken from his hands, the mage shutting it behind her, the most intense look he had ever seen upon her face. He opened his mouth to say something, but she placed a finger over his lips, continuing to stare into his eyes. He simply looked back, his heart suddenly racing, his stomach jumping in a way he had never experienced before.

She lowered her hand from his lips, placing it on his chest. She fingered the material of his homespun tunic, her eyes following her fingers. He still couldn't read the look on her face. Her free hand came up, paralleling the other already on his chest, now feeling the muscles beneath his shirt, travelling slowly from his shoulders to his collarbone, then down to his chest. He was tempted to take her into his arms, kiss her, but something told him to stay still and let her explore a little.

Truth be told, he was incredibly nervous to be alone with her like this. He both hoped that she would come to his bed this night, and yet also hoped she merely wished to talk more. He was getting good at it; she knew most of the good things about him, and even some of the bad things.

He knew how to make love to a woman, knew how to make her feel good, knew how to be a strong man who could provide what she needed. But he did not know how to love, or at least not how to  _show_  it. Looking upon her body filled him with lust, and yet it was different; her body made him want to speak of love, and life, and to simply hold her against him, feeling her skin touch as much of him as he could manage. He had simply never done this with someone with whom he was being honest about how he felt, and he found it quite terrifying.

After a minute or so of setting his body ablaze with her touch, Wynne spoke. "It has been… a long time." She looked up into his eyes once more, inching a little closer. He was stunned by how clear the blue in her eyes was.

"Since…?"

"Since I was with someone who was more than a convenient friend."

He smiled a self-deprecating smile. "That is also true for myself, Wynne."

She nodded, conceding that to him. "I fear I do not know how to start," she confessed, continuing to finger the material of his tunic, setting his skin ablaze with the heat of her hands, her crystal-blue eyes staring into his.

This was the moment. Did they do this now? Or did he act the coward, back out and sit and talk the rest of the night, taking care of his lust on his own at a later time?

Making his decision, he placed a hand on hers, stilling it, stepping closer and placing his other hand on her waist. "It usually starts with a kiss," he whispered. " _Un pequeño beso_."

"That's it, is it?" she said, a slight smirk touching her lips.

Zevran nodded, drawing her closer. "It does not have to be more complicated than that, I think." He paused, cocking his head to the side as he looked into her eyes. "I think it can be this simple: do you want this?"

Wynne was very close now. He could feel her breath on his lips. She nodded. "Yes. I want this. I want…  _you_."

He smiled. " _Te quiero_ ,  _también_.  _Me gustas tu_ , Wynne." He closed the distance between them, covering her lips with his own and pulling her flush against him, feeling her heartbeat thudding against him in a delicious counter-beat to his own. She gasped a little, a small whimper escaping her, her body tensing for the briefest moment before relaxing, melting to fit his shape. He groaned a little to feel her breasts press against him, even through all that fabric.

He didn't know how to handle her. He wanted to cherish her, not manhandle her. But what if she liked that? Damn this uncertainty! Zevran Arainai was not a man who was unsure of what women wanted!

Fingers wended into his hair, undoing the leather thong holding it in place. He smiled into their kiss, doing the same for her – grateful for the direction, in fact – running his fingers through her hair as he ventured his tongue out to taste her mouth. It was a taste he had become addicted to with their first kiss, a taste he  _always_  wanted more of. They had had some passionate moments in the woods, but he never let his restraint fall, always fearful of somehow disappointing Wynne with to much enthusiasm. He did not wish to be seen as the lustful man who did not care for more than that. Not any longer. Not by Wynne.

But now his heart swelled with an emotion he could not yet name. He took this woman into his arms, leading her to the bed in the corner, expert fingers finding the laces in the front of her dress and deftly loosening them. Her arms wrapped around his neck, holding on tightly, pressing her body to his in a desperate embrace. It was as though she could not get close enough.

He could fix that, however. He deposited her on the edge of the bed, not hesitating in pulling his shirt up over his head. He then sat next to her, enjoying the feel of her fingers on his skin as she explored his hairless chest. He leaned over, sampling the skin of her neck, enjoying the sounds she made, sounds he never thought he would hear coming from her. Her skin was warm, soft, and held a hint of the same taste he found on her tongue. It was simply intoxicating.

His nervousness was gone, replaced by a deep excitement.

His hands strayed upward again, and he began to unlace her bodice in earnest. He stopped abruptly, the uncertainty returning briefly when he felt her hands leave his skin, felt them join his on her dress. Pulling back a little, he looked down to find she was  _helping_. A few tugs, and the front of her dress was open, displaying an absolutely  _perfect_  set of breasts: pale-skinned, only slightly wrinkled with her years, full and heavy with their weight, and yet with nipples still perky enough to look right back at him.

"Oh, Wynne," he murmured, looking into her eyes for permission.

She smirked, her hands on his arms now. "Are they everything you have been dreaming of?"

His eyes flashed. He wrapped his arms around her waist, turning her and pressing her onto her back. "There is only one way to find out," he answered her, before finally,  _finally_ , diving into those marvelous bosoms.


	26. -Pation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut. So much Smut. OMG guys, so much smut. In fact, that's all this tiny little mini-chapter is.

"Leli? Um, where are we going?"

"To take care of something," Leliana answered, utterly cryptic. Solona knit her brows in confusion at the answer, her bewilderment only growing when Leliana opened a door at random, took a peek inside, took another peek down the hallway, and then pulled Solona inside.

"Okay, really, Leli, what's goi-" The mage was cut off when Leliana pushed her into the door and crushed their lips together. She immediately kissed her back, not really bothered that the room was dark and felt rather cramped, her arms going around her lover and pulling her close. The bard pulled back after a moment, panting, her warm, sweet breath washing over Solona's face.

"Two days, Solona.  _Two days!_  And I have been hovering on the blade's edge the entire time!" Her lips were suddenly on Solona's neck, arms looped around her shoulders and pulling the mage lower so she could better reach the sensitive flesh below the ear.

"I'm sorry, Leliana!" Solona's voice was a fervent whisper. Already her blood was pounding with Leliana's ministrations. "I wanted to this afternoon, but time got away from us while we were helping Alistair."

Leliana's own harsh whispers continued as if she hadn't heard. "And then I had to watch you spinning that  _tart_  Isolde around before you would dance with  _me_ ," she breathed, nipping at Solona's throat every few words.

"I- ah! I'm sorry, Leli! I couldn't turn down the arlessa for a dance. But I was coming over to you-" Lips crushed into hers, cutting her off.

"I'm not interested in your excuses, Warden," the bard said, her voice low, husky. She tangled her fingers into the mage's hair, pulling slightly, the faint pain doing all manner of wicked things to Solona's insides. "If you do not fuck me  _right now_ , I will be forced to go out there and find someone who  _will_."

"I- wait, you would do that?"

"I certainly  _could_. It has not been so long since I seduced someone that I am not still  _quite_  capable."

Solona stared in the dark for a moment, then grabbed the bard and turned her around so  _her_  back was against the door, dropped to her knees, and immediately began wading through petticoats. Leliana helped, grabbing handfuls of skirts and pulling up, and soon Solona was presented with a familiar scent, her hands brushing up against the soft, downy hair over her lover's sex.

"No smallclothes?"

Leliana groaned. "Not in dresses, no, my love." She paused. "Aren't you supposed to be- oh!"

Solona surged forward, lifting one of Leliana's legs over her shoulder and burying her face between the bard's legs.

" _Oh, mon Dieu!_ "

Solona groaned, savoring the taste of her lover. But her lover was not quite as open as Solona needed her. Pulling back, the mage shifted Leliana's leg, holding it up and out at the knee with one hand, stabilizing the bard's hips with her other hand. Pressing forward once more, she found those delectable folds spread before her like a feast, and she dove in, pushing her tongue inside Leliana as far as she could.

"Solona!" the bard breathed, her fingers tangled in the mage's hair, pulling mercilessly. Solona didn't mind. She just groaned once more, pulling her tongue back and lashing that sensitive bundle where the delicious folds of flesh met. Leliana's breathing became even more ragged. Solona could tell she was very close: her body began to tremble, and she had switched to a steady stream of Orlesian, most of which was uttered so quickly and quietly that Solona couldn't understand it.

Suddenly, the bard's legs tensed, tightening around Solona's head, blocking all sound as she hovered momentarily on that cliff's edge before another lash of the mage's tongue sent her careening over. Leliana went rigid after bucking, her fingers tightening painfully in Solona's hair. Solona kept up the work with her tongue, doing her best to clean up the splash of liquid she felt on her chin.

She did wish she could hear her lover's cries, but having the sound blocked out in the manner it had been was it's own reward.

After another moment, in which Solona began to wonder if she would be allowed to breathe again, Leliana began to pull, making it clear Solona should stop the activity with her tongue. She was pulled away, and she was able to get in a single large breath before the bard was bending over, kissing her deeply. Solona stood, stooping to reach her lover, kissing her and holding her trembling body in her arms.

Wetness on her cheeks made her pull back enough to speak. "Leliana, are you crying?" The bard shook her head, pulling the mage down for another kiss, but Solona turned her head, kissing her cheek and tasting salt. "Why are you crying, my darling girl?"

A small laugh. "No reason. Just… release," Leliana breathed, shaking her head and kissing the mage again and again.

"Fair enough," Solona murmured, reaching up to stroke the woman's intricately-styled hair. "So… were you really jealous of the arlessa?"

A beat of silence followed. "Not  _really_. But… well, I  _was_  a little jealous of the arlessa, but I have mostly been jealous of your  _time_."

"What do you mean?"

"You have been in meetings, having dinners with Arl Eamon and his family, helping Wynne teach Connor… I'm accustomed to having you to myself if we're not travelling," Leliana muttered, laughing a little at herself. "I am not used to having to share you." She giggled. "But being jealous of the other woman you were dancing with certainly got me what I wanted from you."

Solona snorted, shaking her head before kissing the bard deeply. It was true. Leliana's jealousy had been rather  _effective_  in getting her what she wanted. But Solona had enjoyed it just as much.

They stayed together, kissing and holding each other, for a few more moments, sweaty and cramped into some kind of closet. They had to leave, however, so Solona pulled back, and Leliana fixed her skirts the best she could in the dark. Spying that the coast was clear, she exited the room – indeed, a broom closet – leading Leliana by the hand.

"Thank you, Solona. I-"

Solona placed a hand over her lips to silence her, then replaced it with her own lips. "Are you joking? That was incredible, and I can't wait to sneak off sometime and do it again," she said, pulling back with a broad grin.

Leliana smiled, before her expression changed to surprised, then embarrassment. She touched her own lips, her cheeks turning red. "We should go find a place to wash up…"

Solona knit her eyebrows in confusion. Leliana was blushing after what they just did? Solona was fairly certain the woman had no room to have any shame after that. "Why?"

Leliana giggled. "Because, you smell like me, and now I do, as well, my love. People will know what you have been up to."

Solona felt her cheeks heat. She'd found out what would make Leliana blush so, even after dragging her off in the middle of a party and demanding to be taken then and there. "Right. Well. Lead on, my Lady," she said, sweeping her arm out as she bowed, offering the other arm to the bard. Leliana giggled, took her arm, and led her off in search of a washroom.


	27. Awaken, Warriors!

Wynne lay on her back, head resting on the pillow, looking down at the sleeping form by her side. The morning light was barely starting to shine through the slats over the window, and she had heard the innkeeper get up and begin working just a few minutes before.

Zevran lay with his head upon her bosom, which really shouldn't surprise her, given his fascination with them over the last few months. She smiled, thinking of his enthusiasm the night before when she finally revealed them to him. He had quickly dropped his uncharacteristic boyish shyness, taking them in-hand and reveling in them. Of course, he had also quickly moved on, getting her out of her dress and practically worshipping her body, calling her a goddess as they made love.

It had been… intense. And tremendous fun. They had made love several times, the elf bringing her to a height of passion she had never experienced before; he truly was as talented as he said he was. But he said it was different, too, that this was not about simply pleasing his partner because he found it arousing. He'd said that it was more than that; he enjoyed pleasing her for its own sake. He had delighted in every bit of her, reveling in everything that made her the woman she was.

And she had reveled in all the things that made him a man, delighted by his strength, the feel of his skin and sinewy muscles, the way he held her and made her feel wanted. And loved. He made her feel  _loved_. She blushed now to think of everything they had explored in that one night. And she blushed to admit to herself that she wished to do it once more, as soon as she could. She wanted to know more of this man, connect in this very visceral way, and lie with his head on her stomach and listen as he spoke of his childhood, of the women who raised him, of his love of good wine and card games.

Without thinking, she bent forward and kissed his forehead. He woke instantly, alert, a look of confusion on his face for an instant before he focused on her. His face relaxed into a genuine smile, and he pushed himself up, taking her into his arms and kissing her like she was water and he was dying of thirst.

* * *

Leliana awoke to a mess. A mess that she had had no small part in creating. Sitting up, she stretched, smiling as she felt the warm body next to her shift, then groan.

"Good morning, my love," she murmured, bending over to kiss Solona's shoulder.

Another groan. "I think you may have killed me, woman."

Leliana giggled. "Nonsense! There is no way little me could break a big, strong Grey Warden like yourself."

"Hmph." The mage was tangled in the blankets, her head hidden by a pillow, which Leliana pulled from her to get her to wake. "Hey!"

She giggled again. "It is time to get up, my warden! We are to leave after breaking our fast, remember?"

"No." Solona sat up grinning, immediately pulling Leliana into her lap. "I do believe that you fucked that memory right out of me."

"Language, Solona!" Leliana exclaimed, slapping Solona's arm. "Really, you would make a prostitute blush."

Solona buried her face in Leliana's neck, causing her to laugh and push the mage away. "Why censor myself when it's just us? Besides," she said, smirking. "It's certainly  _true_."

Leliana opened her mouth to protest, then looked around, remembering how, the moment it was polite to go to bed, she had dragged Solona off and thoroughly ravished her, laying claim to her warden more than once. "Perhaps you are right…"

Solona snorted, pulling her close and kissing her hard. "I don't mind, love. But no fair reprimanding me for foul language when  _you're_  the one who decided she liked to take control in bed." She kissed Leliana's shoulder, sending a shiver down the bard's spine. Leliana rearranged herself, straddling the mage's lap and pressing their lips together, dipping her tongue out to taste tea and honey, even through the layers of warm sleep and Leliana's own sex that lingered.

Solona pulled back after a few minutes of slow, languid kissing, kissing her shoulder once more before speaking. "Do you prefer it like that, Leliana?"

Leliana rested her elbows on Solona's shoulders, letting her arms drape loosely behind her. "Hmm? How do you mean?"

Solona knit her brows. "I mean… in control. Dominant. Telling me what to do." She chuckled. "I'm not very good at describing it."

Leliana pulled her arms back slowly, leaning back with her hands in her lap. "I'm…" She didn't know what to say. Introducing someone so new to everything, so early on… it probably wasn't her smartest move. But Solona had gone along with it, seemed to enjoy it, and Leliana had found it to be the most thrilling thing they'd done yet.

"Leli," Solona coaxed, leaning forward to make up the distance Leliana had put between them, kissing her just between her breasts and looking up into her eyes. "Leliana, what's wrong? Did I say something wrong?"

"No, no," she rushed, taking the mage's face in her hands and kissing her forehead. "I just…" She sighed, trying to find the words she needed. "I am much more… experienced than you are. I have had the chance to… explore. I like a variety of things. But  _this_  is not something I've ever been able to explore with someone I cared about. At least… not this side of it."

"What do you mean?"

Leliana began to fidget with her fingers. "I… Maker, I can't believe I'm having this conversation," she half-laughed, feeling her face heat. How was it that she couldn't talk about this now, but could actually  _do_  it last night? "I am small and feminine, my strength hidden from view. I have been in the submissive role during sex my whole life," she finally managed. "Yesterday, I confirmed that I prefer a more dominant role." She looked up finally, finding Solona's slate-grey eyes and being momentarily stunned by how beautiful they were framed by her dark skin.

"Leli." The warden smiled. "You don't have to worry. I  _liked_  it, as much as you did." She grinned, and Leliana found it infectious, grinning back as she looked into those impossibly pale grey eyes. "The thought of you taking control, laying claim to me, using that strength to possess me…" The mage shuddered as she trailed off, the smile gracing her lips growing lascivious. "It is intoxicating. But… you could have  _told_  me what you wanted, you know," she finished, digging her fingers into the bard's side.

Leliana shrieked from the tickling fingers, batting the mage away as she tried to breathe. "Wicked creature!"

Solona laughed, pulling the bard close again and kissing her deeply. "You are my light, Leliana," she said as they calmed, eyes resting on Leliana and holding…  _all_  the trust in the world. "Just tell me what you want to try, and I will happily surrender. I know I can trust you not to hurt me."

Leliana's heart soared at those words. She wrapped her arms around the mage's shoulders, kissing her hard and long. When she finally pulled back, she looked around their room. "Sorry I got a little jealous of you dancing with Lady Isolde. She wasn't even making a move! It was silly. But I had been in an almost constant state of arousal for so long, and there was just something about seeing another move in on…  _mine_." She almost growled at the last.

Solona snorted, slapping her bottom, causing Leliana to nearly jump out of her lap. "If it gets me that reaction every time, then I shall just have to shamelessly flirt with every woman I come across," the mage teased.

"Rogue!" Leliana laughed, before taking her roughly by the hair, yanking her head back, and kissing her hard.

"Mmmm, my point exactly," Solona murmured, kissing her again before turning her over onto her back, starting them toward indulging in a quick bout of lovemaking before it was truly time to break their fast and leave.

* * *

A movement next to him woke Alistair up. He opened his eyes to find a woman's pale naked bottom staring him in the face.

"Maker!"

The woman turned around, a surprised sound escaping her lips. "Alistair! I mean, your Majest-"

"Please, don't," Alistair said, sitting up and grabbing her hands. "I've known you since we were children, Ellia. Besides," he said, smiling into her large, shining eyes, "I'm not king yet. And we don't want anyone to know yet that I'm going to be."

The elven woman smiled, ducking her head. "As you wish."

"Please, please don't do that." He pulled on her hands a little, getting her to look back at him. "It's just me, sitting here in front of you. Just like it always was. Well," he amended, "except for the no clothes bit."

She laughed at that, which was exactly what he wanted. "As you wish,  _Alistair_. Had I offered as a kid, you wouldn't have known what to do, anyway."

He laughed. "I was ten years old! Hardly old enough to know how it all worked! And you were far too young for that anyway."

Her expression turned a little sad. "You are a good man, Alistair – but naïve to think that. There are far too many older men who like the idea of a young girl in their bed, especially a young elven girl."

His jaw dropped. "I- I- have you had to endure…?"

She shook her head, pulling her hands away and tucking her red hair behind her long, pointed ears. "No, I haven't. But I've heard stories from the other women in the castle." She moved to sit next to him on the edge of the bed. "Not all lords are as good as Arl Eamon – many allow their guests free reign over their servants."

"I can't believe…" He frowned, reaching over and putting a finger under her chin, getting her to look at him once more. "I'm going to do what I can do change all this. I can't… change everyone's prejudice. But I can change the  _law_ , get elvish representation in my advisory board. I can get the elves out of the Alienage – or at least put money  _into_  the Alienage, make it better, more liveable."

She smiled, throwing her arms around his shoulders. "Oh, Alistair! You will make a  _great_  king!"

He smiled, hugging her back. But the feel of her pressed against him was beginning to be distracting, naked as they both were. And he knew she had work to do, and didn't want to detain her, so he pulled away, smiling down at her. "It's more than fair. The elves are just as much a part of this country as their human counterparts. I just wish more people could see it. I'm not any better than you."

"Well," she said, cupping his cheek with her hand, "perhaps it will do this country some good to have a common-raised king."

He turned his face, kissed her palm, then released her. "I know you have work to get to. I don't want to get in the way of that."

Her eyes flashed, and she raised herself onto her knees before straddling his lap, pressing her breasts very close to his face. "Oh, they aren't expecting me for at least an hour," she answered, pulling his face up and covering his lips with her own. When her tongue slipped in his mouth and her pelvis gyrated against his, he knew he couldn't have said no even if he'd wanted to.

* * *

Sten awoke instantly, finding Max sniffing around his face. He'd been given the same room as the last time he'd been at the castle, which he approved of, as he already knew how to make himself a bed by the fire. The fire wasn't lit – it was still far too hot for a fire indoors – but it was still a comfortable place that was big enough for him to spread out.

Stretching, he got up, putting on the clothing that had been cleaned in the night and going to the tray of food that had been left for him. The legends of the elves' soft tread must not be exaggerated if the servants here could come into the room multiple times without waking him.

He had retired early to his room the night before, taking the hound with him after the kennel-master complained of him. He understood the animal's need – he, too, was travelling with those not his own, unable to mate or take care of his needs. He knew that male humans sometimes took care of themselves, but that was not something a kossith male could do – part of the act of mating involved losing control with another. He supposed her could attempt mating with one of the human females, but he was still left with the problem that he did not find them sexually appealing. So he understood the dog's enthusiasm when he had discovered the kennel full of females in heat. Sten was not sure he would be able to control himself if presented with a similar pen of eager kossith women.

He had watched out his window while he had awaited the dinner the elven servants brought to him. He watched the adult males shake hands, then present young females. The females acted so strangely, bending forward and allowing the blonde warden to look at their breasts. He  _did_ find the warden's obvious discomfort amusing, however, though he couldn't begin to imagine why the warden didn't like it. The young females were obviously just reaching breeding age, and would naturally be looking to find mates. The male warden's discomfort was misplaced; he should simply pick one and mate with her, be done with it. Sten did not understand this society.

He finished breaking his fast and moved to exit the room, taking Max outside to relieve himself while the qunari did his morning exercises with the sword strapped to his back.

As he worked through the forms, holding his sword high above his head, feeling his arm muscles bunch and willing them to relax, he thought of his sword,  _Asala_. His soul. Regret filled his heart at what he had done in his panic, killing the very farmers who had saved him, nursed him back to awareness. He had known no other humans to think him worth saving – most cowered in fear at his approach. These had shared their meager food with him, allowing him around their children. And he had repaid them by slaughtering them all when they told him they did not know where his sword was.

His panic he understood. He could not return to his people without  _Asala_. He could not turn in his report to the arishok, nor could he  _ever_  see anyone who followed the Qun again. His only hope of communing with those like him would be to join up with Tal Vishoth, which was worse than death to Sten. To  _all_  Sten. So he followed a Grey Warden in hopes of somehow redeeming his sin against those farmers. And he could not deny that there was a small part of him that hoped they would somehow find  _Asala_.

But it was impossible. To find such a small thing in a country so large.

His soul burned to think of what might have happened to his sword. Some hawker selling it to the highest bidder. He must at least  _try_  to retrieve it.

He would go to the lead warden. She had managed to retrieve magical Ashes that had healed the arl, though Sten refused to believe they were somehow divine – that cave had reeked of magic and lyrium. But still, she had managed to find a legend; a sword, by comparison, was only a small feat. He would bring her the information he had collected during their week-long stay at the lake, when he had travelled to the site of his kith's ambush. He would see if she could accomplish what he could not, and return to him his sword. His  _Asala_.

His soul.

* * *

Wind buffeted her, but she reveled in it. The feel of the air flowing through her wings, ruffling her feathers slightly as it fought to both stand them up and hold them down. It made her feel powerful, to be so small and yet master something as large as the sky, using the invisible air to propel herself higher than the clouds. She had discovered as a child, in her first form – this one, the raven – that the clouds were intangible, and it had been disappointing until she'd noted in Lothering that she was one of the few people around her who knew that. Having a secret delighted her, knowing – with proof! – that she was smarter than those around her. She never  _divulged_  the secret, of course, but simply knowing she had one had satisfied her immensely.

Speaking of clouds, she could see some on the horizon that would be invisible from the ground. They were dark, heavy, ominous-looking, promising foul weather in the next day or two. Perhaps she should warn the wardens?

She swooped down, alighting in the window she knew was the sole opening other than the door in the room she had been given. She had slept the night in the forest surrounding Redcliffe, not being able to stand one more night surrounded by stone walls. The idea that she might attend the inane festivities the nobles of this place had thrown was ridiculous, and she had let her disapproval be known before she had left. Alistair, at least, seemed to have appreciated it – she caught his grin even as he sought to calm the jumpy elven servants when she had uttered the word to change to her current form.

Alighting on the floor of her room, Morrigan shifted back to her natural form, completely unselfconscious in her nudity. She was surprised to find her tunic and skirts washed and folded neatly upon the table, but put them on without much thought. Underneath them were her shoes and the pins for her hair, which she put up without any preamble. What she did not find, however, was her mother's necklace, the one made from pure lyrium and enchanted to not harm the wearer, given to her when she had reached her maturity – the one gift her mother had ever given her. While she now knew her mother bore no love for her, had indeed planned to cast her soul from her body, still she kept the trinket. One did not part with something with such raw power, no matter the sentiment behind its gifting.

So where was it? Would the servants have stolen it, thinking it worth something? She doubted it; it was not worth their livelihoods, nor was it aesthetically pleasing in any way, making it utterly worthless to anyone to whom they could pawn it. She narrowed her eyes. Alistair had been in the hallway with her. He had taken it, she knew it.

Moments later she was exiting her room, intending to throw his door open and demand he return it to her at once. But she was stopped just steps from his door when it opened, spitting out a somewhat disheveled-looking elven woman still lacing up her bodice. Her eyes met the shorter woman's with curiosity and a healthy measure of ice, cutting into the servant's gaze. The woman flinched, curtsied with a mumbled "Milady" and ran off, forgetting to latch the door. Morrigan glared after her.

The oaf had managed to bed someone without paying her? Of course, it was a tart of an elven servant, probably used to going to bed with visiting nobles. Now that it was known that Alistair would seek the throne, perhaps she sought to take advantage of him in some way?

Morrigan turned, catching a glimpse of Alistair's muscled back as he dropped a shirt over his shoulders through the partly-open door. The sight made her uncomfortable, her stomach involuntarily clenching at the sight, but she refused to even think about the reason why – even stupid men could be physically attractive, and it had been some time since her foray at the Pearl. Instead, she strode forward, barging through the door.

"Where is it, Alistair?"

He jumped, turning with his fists raised. His eyes registered her presence a second later, and he sagged, his arms going to his sides as he exhaled. "Maker, you scared me! Don't you know how to knock?"

She raised a brow, her hands on her hips. "There was no need. Your  _evening company_  left the door open." She looked him up and down, taking in his ruffled hair, his vaguely satisfied smile, even under his slight scowl. "Honestly, you can do better, Alistair. Why be like so many and take a helpless  _elf_  to your bed? Why not take someone who at least had the  _option_  of denying you? Is it truly so exciting to lie with someone so… subservient?"

Anger flared in his face as she spoke, making her smirk. "Wait a minute! Ellia isn't- I didn't- You are an absolute  _bitch_ , Morrigan! She's an old friend from when  _I_  was a servant here, as well! And  _she_  put the moves on  _me_!"

Morrigan crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes. " _Clearly_  she simply wishes to bear you a bastard child, much like yourself, and profit from it once you are on the throne. You shouldn't let people take advantage of you, Alistair."

"She knows I'm most likely infertile, and we took precautions anyway," he said, glaring. "Is it really so hard to believe that a woman might actually like me enough to want to be with me? That I might know enough to leave her as satisfied as she leaves me?"

The way he held himself, towering above her without overpowering her, holding his ground under her unnecessary attack without attacking her in return, sent a thrill through the witch. She didn't know what it was, but she  _enjoyed_  these exchanges with him. What was wrong with her?

Instead of questioning it – exploring her feelings further – she changed topics. "Fine. I shall return to my initial query: where is it?"

His voice was still hard, but his stance relaxed, the set of his shoulders not so defensive. "Where is what?"

"My pendant, the one I always wear and which should have been with my clothing when I transformed last night."

His defensive stance completely dissolved at that. "Oh. This?" He held up the stone on the leather thong, pulling it from beneath his shirt.

Ignoring the small thrill that ran through her to know that it had lain against his skin, she strode forward to seize it from him. But she was stopped by his hand on her shoulder. "Hold on, let me take it off, and you can have it."

She narrowed her eyes as he did so, snatching it immediately from his hand when it was offered, again ignoring the slight increase in her heartbeat at feeling his heat within it. "And what possessed you to take it at all?"

He shrugged. "I thought you'd like it back, so I took it when I asked the servants present for your little  _show_  to wash your clothes for you."

"Oh… I…" She looked up at him. He was very close. Too close. She could feel his warm breath, smell the slightly sweet scent of it. She could smell all of him; the aroma of lavender and sandalwood, of wood smoke and sweat, of steel and leather, all clinging to him even when he was freshly bathed. The fact that she knew this made her uncomfortable. She could smell it now, though it was under-cut by a different scent, one not his own – a feminine scent. The aroma of that  _elven harlot_  clung to him. She narrowed her eyes and stepped back.

Turning on her heel, she marched from the room, not saying another word to him as she placed the pendant around her neck and dropped it into her shirt, feeling its familiar weight between her breasts. She smirked, knowing he would just stare after her, a look of confusion showing stupidly on his face. What she did not catch was the way his eyes followed the sway of her hips.

* * *

"There they are!"

Wynne walked hand-in-hand with Zevran, both still wearing the same clothes from the night before, through the gates to the castle. Solona smirked; they'd finally bedded each other! And from the glow she could see surrounding Wynne from here, it had been excellent.

"You were looking for us?" Zevran had a grin the size of a mabari's maw on his face, clearly far too proud of himself. Wynne's face flushed a deep red.

Solona snorted. "Come on, you two lovebirds. We leave in an hour!"

They hurried off to bathe and gather their belongings.

"'Tis most unsettling," Morrigan spoke up from next to her. Solona jumped, as she hadn't even known the witch was there.

"How do you mean?"

"Their… romance." She said the word with a look of distaste. "'Tis almost  _sickening_ , is it not?"

"Oh, I think it's sweet," Leliana replied, standing on the other side of Solona. The mage narrowed her eyes; she could smell an argument coming on between her two companions. "So unlikely, and yet they are perfect for each other!"

Morrigan glared at the bard for a moment, opening her mouth to speak. Just as she did, however, their attention was pulled away by the timely arrival of Alistair. "Good morning," he greeted them, a sloppy grin on his face.

Solona narrowed her eyes at him, then grinned. "Good morning. You seem, uh… quite  _chipper_  this morning."

He smiled. "I feel good."

Morrigan huffed a laugh. "I'd say so, given the elven  _tart_  I found leaving his room this morning."

His expression clouded. Solona laughed out loud, Leliana grinning knowingly next to her. Both Morrigan and Alistair just looked at them quizzically. "What are you two snickering about?" Alistair crossed his arms over his chest.

"Oh, nothing," Leliana sing-songed. "Come along, Solona, we have a few more things to gather together."

They walked away, Solona's arm around Leliana's shoulders, Leliana's arm around her hip. "I bet they're back there, scratching their heads at us," the mage remarked.

"Almost certainly. But that's all right; they need one or two things to unite over if they're ever to consummate their love."

Solona snorted. "You say it as if it's going to be gentle and full of love and longing. I bet it'll be like sparring, full of anger. Lots of yelling, and bruises after everything is said and done."

Leliana's eyes flashed up at her. "I'll take that bet. What are you willing to wager, my warden?"

Solona stared down at her for a moment, then narrowed her eyes shrewdly. "If I'm right, then you take two of my watches – on days when you wouldn't have had watch, of course."

Her heart skipped a beat at the sweet smile Leliana gave her in return. Her bard had mischief in mind. "Very well. However, if  _I_  win, you will be tied up and waiting for me during two of  _my_  watches – whether or not you also had watch that night."

Solona was stunned, speechless, blood immediately pounding between her legs. "I, um… what, uh…"

Leliana giggled sweetly. "Come, Warden, you enjoyed restrains last night, did you not?" Solona could only nod. Before her eyes flashed images from the night before: Leliana pushing her to the bed, using her own clothing to tie her to the bed post, ravishing her while denying her a simple kiss. Leliana pulled on her to get her moving once more. "Well, bondage is something I'm intimately familiar with, but never in this role. To see such a tall, strong woman submit to me… it lights a fire within me. To have control over you…" The bard shivered, her pupils dilating as she looked up at her lover.

Blinking, Solona let her mind picture Leliana's description as the bard led her to their rooms. She had a feeling they would be late in leaving the castle…

* * *

They left Redcliffe two hours later, much to Leliana's self-satisfied amusement. As they moved out, Alistair rode up alongside her.

"So… Jowan."

Solona scowled atop her horse. Alistair immediately got a guilty look. "What about him?" she said, curt.

"I just… is there a reason we didn't stay?"

Her scowl deepened. "Neither him nor I wanted me there for his execution."

She urged her horse forward, leaving him behind her. She wasn't angry, per se, but she also didn't wish to dwell. She was at peace with Jowan's death – the man deserved it, given the crimes he had committed – but that didn't mean she wanted to talk about it. She'd already done that with Leliana, who could simply listen and comfort, and then divert her attention. She heard Leliana begin to speak, and she hoped the bard could explain all that to her fellow warden.

She overtook Wynne and Zevran, smirking at how closely they rode to each other, talking softly. Zevran noticed her first. "Ah, Warden! You grace us with your presence!"

"I don't mean to interrupt." She couldn't keep the smirk from her face.

"Oh, knock it off right now, Solona," Wynne reprimanded. "I see that look on your face. Yes, we are officially lovers. Are you happy?"

Solona grinned. "Very. Maybe now Zevran will leave me alone."

"Unlikely," Zevran said, a lascivious grin on his face. "Wynne knows me well enough to know I will never stop looking at other women. I will stare lewdly as long as I have eyes that work."

Wynne rolled her eyes while Solona snorted. "Glad to see falling in love hasn't changed you  _too_  much, Zevran," the warden said.

"Indeed. I will never change my lecherous ways."

"Honestly, you two, you'd think you were  _children_." Wynne tutted her tongue, but there was a hint of a smile in her eyes, betraying her disapproval as false.

"Very well, my dear Wynne." Solona couldn't help but smile, to know that the endearment was said out of sincerity now, instead of as a way to get under the mage's skin. "You two have been teaching the arl's son in your magical arts. What did you eventually recommend?"

Solona's face fell, as did Wynne's. The warden sighed. "We recommended he go to the Circle."

Zevran knit his brows. "Even after all we learned about Andraste and the intended purpose of the Circle?"

It was Wynne who answered him this time. "Yes. He needs more training, and he cannot get it from us. His original tutor is to be executed tomorrow. The only other option is the Circle. We left a long letter to be delivered to Irving, and as his last apprentice was Solona, he should be able to take the boy on himself."

"Plus," Solona added, "he's young, far from his Harrowing. We should have the time to defeat the Blight and begin the process of… changing things. In the meantime, he'll be around people like himself, instead of his pious and misunderstanding mother."

Zevran nodded. "I suppose I can see the wisdom in that. Still, it is unfortunate he will be taken from his parents. Didn't you say family is not allowed to visit until after you are grown?"

"It's true. But again, we're hoping to be able to start changing things before then. If all goes well, he'll see his parents again next summer – a year from now."

Zevran nodded, examining the village as they passed through. "Well, you two know best, of course. And if he needs more training, to avoid another incident like the nightmare that visited this place, then I agree that he should get it. It is unfortunate that the place you tried so hard to escape is the only place that can give it to him, however."

Solona sighed. "I agree. But I don't have the time to find an alternative."

Wynne leaned over, placing a hand on her knee. "It is all right, Solona. It is not your fault that the Chantry got it so  _wrong_. It is our responsibility to fix it, but that starts with defeating the Blight."

Solona stared at Wynne's caring face for a moment, then nodded. "You're right, of course." She paused, reaching out a hand to grasp Wynne's. "Thank you, Wynne."

The older mage smiled warmly. "You are more than welcome. Now, come along. I am eager to put some distance between us and the town before that storm Morrigan mentioned rolls in." She urged her horse to a trot like a pro, leaving a startled Solona and a grinning Zevran behind.

"I suppose I can see the appeal," she murmured.

Zevran chuckled. "Yes, she is quite the spry woman." He, too, urged his horse forward, leaving Solona staring in his dust. She recovered, smirked, and kicked her horse into a trot. For now, things were very good.


	28. The Road... Is Interrupted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I debated whether to include this quest, but I ultimately decided to (thanks in no small part to the words Raven Sinead had to say on the matter). But I changed it around a bit to suit my characters, and because this is simply how it insisted upon being written. Once again - who am I to argue?
> 
> Really, there's the start of two quests here, but one of them is necessarily spread out.
> 
> Onward!

Solona threw another log onto the fire, wiping her hands together to try to get the sap off. Turning, she took a seat on the ground, large logs having been unavailable where they decided to camp. A horse's snort caused her to look up for a moment, and she cursed the need for the beasts yet another time.

It actually wasn't that bad. She and her horse had a tenuous relationship starting – meaning he threw her once a day instead of once an hour – that she put up with because they had covered nearly three times their normal distance in the last day than they normally would have on foot. Max trotted along beside them happily, occasionally running off with Sten or Leliana to help hunt. Sten, too big for his horse, jogged along beside them as well, his steed acting as a beast of burden for the group, setting the group's speed with a pace he explained he could keep up for an entire day and night if need-be – his kind often did, as an island people with no steeds. He didn't seem to mind; in fact, he seemed pleased that they could now cover more ground.

Everyone was pleased with that.

Morrigan refused to ride her horse, instead traveling with them in one of her many animal forms. Alistair had silently taken the reigns of her horse when she had shape-shifted that morning, stowing her clothing in her saddlebags without a word and tying the reigns to his saddle horn. Solona had given him a look, but he had simply ignored her, taking it upon himself to care for the witch's horse. Zevran had had the wonderful idea of using her horse as a beast of burden as well as Sten's, loading extra supplies – like food for themselves and their mounts – upon the unused horse alongside the witch's few belongings. This allowed them to leave the cart and donkey at Redcliffe, as it could not keep the same pace as the horses, anyway.

All in all, it was a good change. Solona just hated that  _her_  horse seemed to have been spawned by demons.

Her attention was called back by her stoic watch-mate. "Warden," Sten rumbled, coming to stand next to her.

She looked up at him, marveling at how he towered above her, sitting on the ground as she was. "Can I do something for you, Sten?"

He hummed, peering down at her. "Why do you sit upon the ground so? It is a weak position from which to strike should an attack occur."

She tilted her head. "I never thought about that." She furrowed her brows as she considered him. "The only thing that attacks us are darkspawn, and I can sense them before they are even aware of me." She smirked. "I can also repulse any attacker with only my mind."

"I… had not considered that." He stared down at her critically. "You are not quite as callow as I thought. That is… unexpected.

"You thought me callow?" she said with a frown.

"You are young, and had to be taught to fight appropriately. You had not been long out of the Tower, if I remember correctly."

She nodded. "I suppose that is true." She peered up at him. "You have helped tremendously in righting that."

"As I have said, it is the responsibility of the experienced to teach those willing to learn." A moment of silence passed before he spoke again, a seeming nonsequitor. "I never told you why I killed those farmers."

It was a statement, but it was also an offer. But Solona had to tread lightly, so that she did not close him off, as he had ever been on their journeys thus far. "That is true, you have not. Yet."

He hummed again, staring off into the woods. She resisted the urge to prompt him for more, knowing he was probably looking for words. It was what all the stoic men she'd ever known did.

Finally, just as she was getting up off the ground to go wake her replacement, he spoke, stilling her movement immediately. "I… panicked."

She knit her brows. He  _panicked_? A qunari warrior, stronger than that entire family combined,  _panicked_? About  _what_?! "What caused you to panic, Sten?"

Another hum, low in his throat. "They could not tell me what I wished to know, and I allowed fear to overcome me. A haze settled over me, and when it lifted, the farmer and his… family… were dead, their blood covering my hands." He looked at her a moment before his eyes slid back to the trees, apparently done.

"Wait, Sten. What… what in all of  _Thedas_  could be so important that  _you_  would lose your head and slaughter those people? What could they not tell you?"

"My sword. I did not know where it was. It fell from my hands when my kith was overwhelmed by darkspawn, and they did not retrieve it when they pulled me from the field of battle."

"You  _sword_?!" Solona was incredulous. How could that be so important that he would completely lose all reason? The sword he wore upon his back, the one made by the dwarves, was probably of higher quality, given its materials, available only in the dwarven mines. No, she must be missing something. "Was this sword special in some way?"

"Yes," he grunted, finally turning to face her. "It is  _Asala_ , my soul. Without it I cannot enter Par Vollen, cannot give my report to the arishok. Without it, I have no soul. A warrior, a Sten, is nothing without his soul, his sword. I would be slaughtered on sight. No warrior would cast aside his blade while he drew breath."

Damn it if he didn't look close to panic, to grief, as he spoke. It was the most impassioned she'd ever seen him. Even in battle, his face was a stoic mask of calm. The only hint of anger she'd ever seen in him had been when he had challenged her tactics in Haven.

She took a deep breath. There was no point in arguing his people's beliefs in his worth with and without his sword. Even if she convinced  _him_ , it would still be true of his return to his people. If this sword was so important, then the only thing for it was to try to get it back. It might even give the qunari people a reason to trust them a little – if not the people of Ferelden, then the Grey Wardens, at least. "Where were you overwhelmed, Sten? Where did you last have your  _Asala_?"

He considered her for a moment, seeming to weigh her words. Finally, he rumbled, "Lake Calenhad, nearest to the village you call Lothering."

She nodded. "All right. When we pass that way tomorrow we'll go look. We won't find much, but the beginning is generally the best place to start."

His brows furrowed. "I agree. And I have already done so, while you studied the origin of your Arcane Order at the Circle Tower. I found a scavenger, who did not have the sword on his person or in his belongings."

"In his belongings… you, uh,  _checked_ , did you?" He answered with a nod. "Right… Did he survive the encounter?"

"Yes. He is not the one who took my  _Asala_. He was speaking and acting truthfully."

"Well, that's good. Not losing your head  _again_." She peered up at him in the firelight. "Did he tell you anything?"

"Yes. The merchant he purchased looting rights from went to Orzammar, where he was to set up his wares." Sten paused. "He leaves after the autumn season."

"Shit. Dammit, Sten, why couldn't you tell me this  _before_  we set out for the Brecelian Forest? And we can't turn around – the Dalish will have moved on from the forest by the end of autumn, as well." She chewed on her lip, trying to think of a solution.

"I was not expecting that you could find it, Warden."

She looked up at him again. "But you were hoping I could?"

He blinked. "Yes. You found a legend, bewitched ashes that healed the arl of an unknown poison." He paused again, humming to himself. "My  _Asala_  is much smaller than that mountain, and I  _know_  it is real, not some legend lost to time. Perhaps you could have found it."

She snorted. "Smaller, and much more portable." She crossed her arms, staring up at him again. "I swear to you, if it is at all possible, I will find your sword, Sten. I do not know if I can – hell, I don't know if I'll even survive this Blight, to be perfectly honest – but if it is within my power, I will return to you your  _Asala_." She became somber, placing a hand on his arm. "No one should be without his soul."

He hummed once again. "Perhaps those words are empty, but… thank you, all the same."

* * *

Alistair was feeling… good. Yes. Good. He'd been able to bathe for the first time in a few days, luxuriating in the cold water after three days in the saddle. It alternated between insufferably humid heat and rainstorms, and he had to wear his armor through all of it, as they'd also run into more darkspawn raiding parties. So sitting in just his trousers, having soaked in the cold water until Morrigan had yelled at him to leave the small river so others could bathe, was the most physically comfortable he'd been since he had awoken to Ellia the morning they left Redcliffe.

He felt himself blush as he thought of her. He didn't know if he was in love with her. Probably, if he wasn't sure, then he wasn't. But he enjoyed her company, and they'd been friends for… a long time. He remembered sitting in the rafters of the stables with her as they both shirked their duties as children. He supposed that if he had stayed around the castle, he'd have lost his virginity to  _her_ , rather than the prostitute at the Pearl. His blush crept down onto his chest as he thought of how enthusiastic she had been with him, seducing him and dragging him off to his own bed before thoroughly ravishing him.

He could have gotten completely caught up in the memories, but was prevented by a large, solid object jumping on his back, arms closing around his throat.

"Let your guard down, did you, Alistair?"

"Ow- Solona!" He stood up, lifting her with him. "You might be big for a girl, but I'm still bigger than you- ah!"

She twisted, rolling out of his grip and hitting the ground, swiping a bare foot out and sending him to the ground. She was on him in a heartbeat, pinning him to the ground even as he tried to get back up. Her eyes glowed, and she grinned maniacally.

"Ow, Solona! Why are you channeling your arcane energy?! You're scary like that!"

Her eyes extinguished, leaving her with a slightly guilty look. "Sorry. I just got done sparring with Zevran, and I was feeling riled up. It snuck through without me realizing."

"That's both good and bad," he heard Wynne say as his fellow warden got up off of him. "It's good that it's coming to you so much more easily, but you need to be able to control it. You don't want to be channeling it when you're angered in diplomatic talks with some leader or ambassador."

"I disagree," Zevran chimed in, bringing an armload of wood toward the fire. "Disarming your opponent, whether physically or emotionally, is the best way to have things go your way. Imagine frightening the king with your glowing eyes, a ball of fire in your hand."

"Well, if things go our way, the next king will be  _me_ , so that trick just won't work," Alistair said, smirking at Solona as she did just as Zevran described, a ball of fire burning in her palm. "You can't scare me with your hokey-pokey magic. I know how to diffuse it." He grinned. "I also know that you have a soft spot underneath all that muscle for a certain porcelain-skinned redhead."

She opened her mouth for a retort, but he never heard what she'd planned to say to him. Instead, all their heads turned in the direction of the river at the sound of a piercing scream.

* * *

Sten lifted his head, all thoughts of the hunt abandoned at the sound of the scream. It was feminine, and familiar. Max set off immediately, Sten bounding after him as realization overcame him – that scream fell from the lips of the orange-haired one, his _kadan's_  mate. This was his kith, even if she was a woman who thought to fight, and he  _would_  respond accordingly.

He was at the waterline within half a minute, his large, powerful legs an equal match for the war hound's when he sprinted like this. What he saw made him wish he had thought to bring his sword on the hunt, instead of abandoning its weight in his tent in favor of a short bow, wanting stealth while hunting.

The bard was unclothed, a large branch in her hands as she attempted to fight off a full dozen bandits that had her surrounded. She bled profusely from a wound in her side, near her hip – impossible to forget, impossible not to favor as she attempted to defend herself. Scowling, he took in the river between them. It was not too deep, not too wide, but it was not nothing; it  _would_  slow him down. As Max crashed into the water to defend his mistress's mate, Sten ran forward toward a particularly large and low-hanging branch. A running jump later, and he was swinging from the branch, landing barefoot in ankle-deep water on the other bank as the branch broke from his weight and crashed into the water behind him.

The first man died with Sten's hands breaking his neck. The second was lifted bodily from his feet, Sten raising him up and crashing him back into the ground with bone-breaking force. Max ensured the man was actually dead with a snarling snap of his jaws to the man's throat.

Things were not so easy after that, as a full half of the rest of the bandits turned to deal with this new threat. He heard Leliana gasp his name, a mixture of relief and fear for his safety in her voice. He could smell her fear, her blood, the stink of the unwashed bodies attacking them, the freshly-extinguished lives of the men now on the ground. He grinned at the men who now faced him, brandishing weapons made of steel as though they would protect them from him.

They would not.

The first man lunged, and Sten moved just enough to the side to avoid the blow, letting the man overbalance, helping him along by grabbing his sword-arm near the shoulder and yanking, feeling the arm pop out of its socket with the force. The man went crashing into the river face-first behind him, howling in pain.

The second man was just about to try skewering Sten when he suddenly stopped, seizing in place. Sten was confused until he saw the flicker of electricity dancing along the man's metal armor, and then he understood. Looking up, he saw the two wardens advancing toward them, weapons drawn and faces set in identical expressions of fury.

He grinned once more, narrowing his eyes at his next opponent. This was going to be far too easy.

* * *

Solona threw her dagger with a roar of anger, igniting it as it left her hand. It embedded itself in the skull of the last man standing, flying with so much power that it pierced right through his helm and into his head, turning the metal around it orange as it heated. He fell dead, a surprised expression still upon his face. She felt the arcane power drain away, going dormant once more as she rushed to a trembling Leliana's side.

The bard was huddled, the branch she'd been holding now on the forest floor, her arms wrapped around her stomach. It wasn't until Solona got to her that she saw all the blood, and her heart immediately dropped to her navel.

"Leli!"

She crouched next to the bard, trying to take her into her arms, but Leliana shrank away, a strangled cry erupting from her lips. " _Non! S'il vous plait, laissez-moi_!"

Solona didn't quite understand all her words, but she knew body language, and she knew something of what the bard said. "All right, Leliana. I won't touch you. But you're injured. I need to see what's wrong, so I can make it stop bleeding."

The redhead's eyes, large with fear and adrenaline and pain, focused on hers, and a moment later she was in Solona's arms, sobbing into the mage's shirt, clutching great handfuls of it as she tried to pull the warden even closer. She smeared blood on Solona wherever they touched, but the mage didn't care. Her love had been attacked, alone and naked while attempting to bathe. She needed to know why.

Why was Leliana singled out? Why here, on the edge of the Brecelian Forest? Were they common bandits, stumbling upon a seemingly helpless naked beauty? She did not know, and that made her  _burn_  with fury.

"Alistair," she said, putting as much command into her tone as possible.

"Yeah?"

"Search them. Any clue as to why they are here. See if anyone survived, if they're carrying anything in writing,  _anything_." She let her desperation leech into her voice at the end, looking up at Alistair, pleading with him with her eyes. He nodded and turned, directing everyone but Wynne to leave them alone.

"I've got you, Leli," she murmured, holding the woman securely as her sobs subsided. She continued murmuring to her as Wynne knelt beside them, gently examining the naked woman for her worst injuries. Solona watched her intently, focusing on the wrinkle in the older mage's forehead, the movement of her lips as she muttered under her breath, the flyaway strands of her lengthening hair that had been displaced in the fight. She didn't fail to notice how the elder mage's eyes drifted over the scarring on Leliana's back and sides, her fingers just grazing the ones closest to Leliana's gravest wound.

Wynne didn't say anything regarding the damage Leliana had clearly taken once upon a time, though, merely looking up and making eye contact with Solona. "It is a serious wound, but manageable. It will be tender for a few days – you and I both know that bruising is not something that can be mended by magic."

She nodded, looking down at the woman cowering in her arms. "You hear that Leliana? You'll be fine. Let's just get you patched up, and then we can be alone, all right?"

Leliana nodded, if barely, still whimpering quietly and trembling slightly. Wynne must have caught it too, however, as she began murmuring under her breath. A soft blue substance, somewhere between liquid and flame, flowed from her fingers, entering Leliana's wound. Solona watched as the jagged, bloody tear on her side began to knit, becoming smaller and smaller until it was a jagged, puckered line just above her hip. Her skin was still covered in blood, of course, but that was to be expected.

Solona stood with the bard in her arms, eliciting a nervous yelp from her as she tightened her hold on the warden. "C'mon, let's get you cleaned up and put to bed, shall we?"

* * *

Leliana listened as the others talked. She was currently snuggled into the light linen sheets they were using in their bed. They would use the cured furs from their hunts as the weather got colder – she'd been saving them, asking Zevran to help her cure them by the fire each time they managed to fell something – but for now, it was much too warm, even at night, to use more than the linens. She also had a thin woolen blanket for when her warden, who seemed to radiate heat at all times, was at watch on chilly nights and could not keep her warm.

She had lost herself when the attack came. One minute she was dunking her hair beneath the surface of the river, lathering the soap in her hands, and the next a throwing knife was slicing deep through her hip.

The volume of her shriek had surprised even her.

The weapon had been thrown, and she had pulled it from herself as she looked around, crouching in the water to present a smaller target. On the bank of the river she'd seen at least a dozen men, grinning lecherously at her nakedness. She had cursed, as they were on the same side of the river as her clothing, and she had left her weapons in camp. She'd stumbled through the water to the other side, her only option to run, keep the noise up, and hope her companions would come quickly.

She had tripped on a rock and dropped the knife in the water, however, leaving her utterly defenseless. They had already been halfway across the river as she stumbled out of it, her hand on her side, willing herself to work through the pain. She'd picked up the branch and wheeled around, brandishing it as best she could with her wounded side and her naked body.

They had leered at her, a dozen half-shouted comments, all lewd in nature, tossed her way. She had panicked, making broad sweeps to keep them away. When Sten and Max had crashed through the trees, her emotions overcame her, and she had started to weep as two of the men turned their focus back upon her. Then the rest of her companions were there - her warden was there - to save her. But then the flashbacks started: her memories of having men force themselves upon her before being put back into her cell, no clothes, bleeding wounds, barely a sip of water available. It was like her mind was free to experience that now that help was assured.

She hadn't really come out of it until Wynne began to heal her. That was when she truly realized that she was surrounded by the familiar scents of tea, leather, wood, steel, and sweat, all smells she associated with the strong arms surrounding her – the scent of her lover. She had yelped when Solona suddenly stood, the bard in her arms as if she weighed nothing. The mage had then carried her to the river, ignoring her own clothed state as she gently held Leliana in the water, letting it wash away the blood that had run all down her hip and leg, covering the hand she had held the wound with and then getting wherever her hand had gone. Then the mage had carried her to their tent, drying her off gently and bedding her down with a few languid kisses. Leliana had been reluctant to let her go, but Alistair had found something, and Solona needed to see what it was,  _why_  Leliana had been singled out and attacked. But thinking of their roles reversed in this situation allowed Leliana to let the warden go. She, too, would have needed answers.

Zevran's voice piped up. "I can read it. Let me see it." A pause, a shuffling of paper, and then, "It is an address, and a description." He paused, then, "Leliana needs to see this, Solona."

A moment later the still-damp warden opened the flap to their tent, holding a piece of parchment in her hand. Leliana's heart began beating faster, and her stomach turned immediately into a molten ball of dread.  _Why do you react so, Leliana? You do not even know what is written therein!_

"Love, Zevran says you should take a look at this, that you'll know what it means. It looks like Orlesian, but I cannot read a word of it. He said he could, and his face got very serious once he'd read it."

Leliana reached out wordlessly, letting the linen sheet drop to reveal her naked torso. The fact that Solona's eyes did  _not_  immediately snap to her breasts worried her – the mage must be  _very_  worked up by the attack if she could not be distracted by that. Leliana's stomach clenched tighter, the molten ball of dread heating to an uncomfortable degree. If this kept up, she would need to make an emergency trip into the trees to be sick.

When she saw what was written on the paper, the molten ball turned immediately to ice.

A hand on her cheek, forcing her attention back to her lover. "Leli? Leli, love, what is it?"

Her voice was barely a whisper when she answered. "They were assassins. Assassins sent by Marjolaine."


	29. A Detour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential trigger warning mid-chapter. It's a flashback of Leliana's. Vaguely non-con in nature.

Solona's stomach dropped to somewhere around her knees. "What do you mean?!" Marjolaine sent assassins? To kill Leliana? But why? She was no threat to the older bard; she had not even been in Orlais in more than three years.

"This… this is a code that only I would be able to read. I suppose Zevran, as a Crow, also knows how to decipher some of it. It tells me to come to the above address. She… she knew we would defeat these bandits, that knew we would find this on them. It is  _bait_." The bard's voice was flat, entirely devoid of emotion.

Solona, however, was not, standing to the full height the tent would allow and frowning down at her lover. "I will go and kill her myself."

"No, Solona, you cannot!" The bard was on her knees in a flash, catching Solona's hand in her own and halting her before she could leave the tent. "It is a trap!" She was not without emotion now, her urgency almost palpable. "She will find a way to capture you, or kill you! Just to watch me suffer."

Solona scoffed. "I highly doubt that; I am an arcane warrior. I immobilized a dragon with my bare hands. I think I can handle an aging  _bard_."

Leliana's tug was more insistent. "No! You cannot! Do  _not_  underestimate her!"

"She's right, Solona," came Alistair's voice from the other side of the tent's canvas. "You can't just go marching into Denerim channeling your arcane energy."

"Maker's br- are you  _all_  listening?!"

A beat of silence. "Well, Morrigan stomped off to sulk by her fire," Zevran answered, "and Sten took Max to go patrol the area. So,  _really_  it is just Wynne, Alistair, and myself."

She sighed. "So all who would care…"

"Yes, yes, that is true." She rolled her eyes. "Leliana is right, Solona. You cannot simply go to that address and storm in. The templars would be able to detect your magic use, firstly. Secondly, you are wanted by Loghain's men, and your highly recognizable visage has not changed. And thirdly, well… we all want the satisfaction of cutting the bitch's throat."

"I agree," Alistair added, a steel in his voice Solona usually only heard when he spoke of Loghain's treachery.

"I, too, believe that this new threat must be dealt with straightaway," Wynne joined in, her voice gentler, but still determined. "And the group is stronger than the sum of its parts."

Solona blinked down at her naked lover a moment, then nodded. She still very much doubted that she couldn't take Marjolaine on her own while channeling her magic, but Zevran was right. And if they all wished to help… "Very well. Let me help you put on some clothes, Leliana, and we can plan."

Leliana nodded, scrambling out of the bedroll and taking the light trousers Solona held out to her. Once she was dressed, Solona gave her a quick hug and a kiss. "Let's get you something to eat, and we can plan our next move."

* * *

Zevran watched with interest. Alistair was pacing around the fire, his indignant anger seeming to roll off him in waves. Zevran didn't really blame him – he knew the man cared for Leliana deeply, even if it had morphed from a romantic to a sisterly love – but he also knew it would do the man no good. He needed a cool head for this. They  _all_  did.

Solona would not venture more than arm's length away from Leliana, which also would do her no good. She was trapped by her need to protect her lover, which could be useful, but instead of channeling it into the fierce fighter they needed, she was letting it overcome her, making her worry about Leliana incessantly and unnecessarily.

Leliana was very quiet. She was clearly annoyed by Solona's protective behavior, and yet still somewhat shocked by the turn events had taken. She sat staring at Alistair's pacing, clearly trying very hard not to bat Solona away, and finally failing. It was clear that someone needed to take charge.

It was becoming even clearer that  _Zevran_ was the best person to take over from here.

"What I want to know," he stated, calm, even, "is  _how_  this woman knew where we were going to be. The only person who knew our next destination was the arl – and anyone who might have been within hearing distance at the time."

Everyone stilled, even Morrigan, who had been in the middle of baiting Alistair, needling him with comments about the woman she had seen leaving his bedchamber the day they had left Redcliffe. Zevran looked at each of them in turn, his eyes settling upon Leliana's last. He was surprised to find a quiet calm in her face, rather than fear. She was shocked by the day's events, yes, but she was not paralyzed by fear, the way they had described she had been initially when faced with the Gauntlet's version of her tormentor. His eyes flashed, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. This was going to be perversely fun, to see the bard come to the forefront.

Leliana narrowed her eyes, then smirked, finally able to focus on something other than Solona and the worried cast of her features. "She is a bardmaster, a spymaster. She has a spy in Redcliffe," she said simply. Zevran nodded his head.

"But how-" Alistair began, but was cut off by Solona's upraised hand, the mage watching Zevran and Leliana's silent exchange closely, her expression changing from worry to anticipation of something glorious.

"So we have two options. We can go all the way back to Redcliffe," he said, holding up one finger. "Or, we can go to this address in Denerim and take care of the problem at its source."

Comprehension flashed in everyone's face, Morrigan the one to say what they were all clearly thinking. "If we take out the threat at its source, then the informant matters not." She crossed her arms, jutting out a hip. "There is a third option, of course."

Zevran glared at her, knowing what she would say and hating that she was right. "Yes, there is, though I do not consider it a  _good_  option."

"What? What third option is there?" Alistair came to stand next to him.

It was Morrigan who answered. "'Tis the Chantry whore they want. She could simply leave, drawing the threat away. 'Tis the wardens' safety, and not hers, that we need worry ourselves with."

Both the wardens' anger was immediate. Alistair began shouting, while Solona got to her feet and glared daggers at the apostate, silently seething in her fury. As her eyes began to glow, Zevran decided to rein in the excitement of the moment.

"It is not the correct option." He looked at Leliana, who remained where she'd been seated, warring with her inner emotions. She was determined, yes, but if he had to bet, he would say that she never imagined she would have to face her former lover alone. "It is  _not_  the right option, Leliana," he said, addressing her and her alone. "We must rout out the threat where it lies. And we must do it swiftly, before she has a chance to flee. The only correct option is to kill her." He regarded the bard silently for a moment. "Can you stomach that, Leliana?"

Solona began to speak, but he held up a hand, silencing her. He, too, could command authority when he needed to. "Yes," the bard said, very quietly, looking him right in the eyes. "Yes, I can stomach that. I will go and deal with this threat on my own. I do not wish to further endanger anyone's lives, as…  _frightened_  as I am of the prospect. But," she continued, forestalling the protest on Solona's lips, "if you will not let me, then we must take care of her before she comes up with far more creative – and far more effective – methods for our demise." She finally turned her gaze, capturing her lover's eyes with her own. "It is not just me she is after, my love. I am sure she has found some way to profit from the knowledge that two of my companions are the last two Grey Wardens left in all of Ferelden. Which means even if I left, she would still come after you, and you would be bereft of the one person alive who knows how she moves."

Zevran grinned. "Good. I'm glad you arrived there, as well." He looked over to Wynne, suddenly understanding Solona's fierce protectiveness – if someone were threatening Wynne in this way, his first instinct would be to rob them of their vital organs, as well. "We must leave first thing in the morning."

Solona's tattooed face wrinkled in concern. "How will we get into the city? As you said, I'm still highly recognizable. And I'm  _not_  being left out this time." She literally put her foot down at the last.

"I will think on it as we ride. It will take a full day to reach the city once we leave the forest, if we ride all day and into the night. I am hoping, however, that I will find some help of a different sort at the Pearl…"

Solona nodded. "All right. I trust you, and you've dealt with this sort of thing before." She stood, leaving Leliana's side for the first time since they exited their tent, and walked over to Morrigan. Quick as lightning, she slapped the witch hard across the face.

As the witch's head snapped to the side with the force, Zevran dropped into a battle stance immediately – knowing the witch's temper, he expected a fight. But Solona cut off any words Morrigan might have as she moved her face back toward the warden, a look of absolute fury on her face. "I told you not to call her a whore,  _witch_. Learn some manners, or I shall teach you them myself."

She turned, marching to her tent, joined momentarily by Leliana, who looked equal parts concerned and pleased. Zevran stood again, eyeing Morrigan, who stared daggers in the direction of Solona's tent as she held her reddened cheek with one hand.

Alistair made the mistake of addressing her. "Are you all right, Morrigan?"

He was on the ground in the blink of an eye, Zevran's ears registering that she'd muttered a spell even as the warden hit the ground. Then she was stalking off toward her fire to lick her wounds. Zevran smirked, walking over to the felled future king.

"Are you hurt?"

He scowled, then rolled his eyes. "Just my pride."

"Well, in that case, I will retire, as I believe it is you and Sten that have watch right now anyway." He walked away, placing an arm around Wynne to lead her off to bed.

"Aren't you going to help me up?"

He smirked. "No, I believe this is your penance for not learning what the look on Morrigan's face meant, Warden. You can get  _yourself_  up."

* * *

They rode the entire next day, even breaking their fast and eating their supper in the saddle, stopping only to relieve themselves in the woods. It was worth it, though, as by an hour after sunset, they were as close to the city as they could get without being detected by patrols. Stopping several hours' walk outside the city, they staked the horses and set up a cold camp, not bothering with tents as they attempted to sleep in bedrolls, waiting for Zevran to sneak into the city and back out with help, and possibly even a plan.

Leliana couldn't sleep. She was far too nervous. It was not that she was afraid of Marjolaine – her trial in the Gauntlet had rid her of that paralyzing fear of ever seeing the woman again. No, she was not afraid of the woman. But that did not mean that she was not still cunning, and vicious, and Leliana could not help but to fear for the safety of her companions. They seemed to think that Marjolaine could be taken down by sheer numbers alone, that she would be like any other opponent they had faced. Only Zevran seemed to understand the true threat, and possibly Wynne, as someone who clearly understood Zevran so well. Leliana could not even truly make Solona see; the warden – both of them, really – was far too caught up in her protectiveness. She seemed to think that she could protect Leliana, could remove this threat to her love, through sheer will alone. While Leliana appreciated the sentiment, she cursed how hardheaded it caused the mage to be. She simply would not budge in her confidence, would not see that caution, and not raw power, was what was called for in the coming confrontation.

_A slap, crisp and clear in the early dawn light, rings through the room. Leliana's head jerks back, and she finds herself reluctant to bring it up again, reluctant to look into those beautiful green eyes, full of such disappointment._

" _How could you do this, Leliana?!"_

" _I- I'm sorry, Marjolaine." In her haste to apologize, she slips into the common tongue, spoken most commonly in Ferelden, the language of her dear, sweet mother. The punishment is swift, another slap to the face, harder, sending her sprawling behind her onto the bed._

" _Do not use that_ _ **filthy**_ _language here!" The taller woman bears down on her, catching her wrists between one heartbeat and the next and pulling her to her feet. Pulling higher, Marjolaine soon has Leliana on the tips of her toes to alleviate the discomfort, the burn in her wrists and shoulders._

_Marjolaine's eyes burn with anger, filling Leliana with dread._

" _It was a simple job, Leliana. You were to seduce this man and kill him after his wife had discovered you. It was_ _ **imperative**_ _that you sleep with him first. Why did you not do this thing?"_

_Leliana hesitates a moment before speaking. "I- I have not lain with a man, Marjolaine. I… thought I could simply relieve him of his life and that would be enough."_

_Instead of sympathy, Marjolaine's eyes flash with wrath. "But it is not enough to simply kill someone, Leliana. You must humiliate him. Part of the job was to lie with him, allow his wife to walk in with you in his bed – preferably at the height of his pleasure – and then slip in later that night to kill him, at his lowest point." She lets go abruptly, causing Leliana to fall to the ground. "And now he is dead, and we cannot disgrace himpublicly. He died with her love for him intact. This was not part of the deal we made, Leliana. We will have much to do to make this up to the client."_

_Rubbing her wrists, Leliana looks up at her mentor, only to see the woman bearing down upon her once more._

" _And I will have to punish you well enough to make sure you do not make the same mistakes again."_

_Leliana's heart begins pounding in her chest, thinking of all the ways in which her sadistic lover might punish her._

Leliana blinked, her head shaking the memory away. Marjolaine had tied her up and blindfolded her, worked her into a frenzy with heated kisses and a riding crop, and then led a nameless man in to lie with them without so much as a by-your-leave. She had enjoyed it more than she had anticipated, but it also made her feel dirty, and horrified that  _that_  was how Marjolaine had punished her, making sure she would never use that excuse to not perform a job to completion again.

But she couldn't just tell Solona this. The mage would become angrier and march off to kill Marjolaine, consequences be damned. That was not what Leliana wanted. She needed Solona to have a cool head. Plus, she didn't wish to hurt Solona, which was ultimately all that information would do.

No, she needed to try a different tactic.

"Solona," she whispered, seeing if the mage was awake.

"Yes, love?" They lay together in one bedroll, the mage spooning her, holding her close as they both attempted to sleep. Clearly, Leliana was not the only one unable to doze off.

"I need you to promise me something, and you can't argue."

A soft snort. "Do I not even get to hear what it is before I agree?"

"Solona, this is important."

A sigh, the air ruffling her hair and tickling her ear. "Very well. I swear I will do whatever it is you ask."

Leliana turned in the woman's arms, looking up into her face. She could barely make out Solona's face, dark as it was in the night's gloom. But her hair stood out, almost glowing in the dark. And her eyes; her eyes the bard would always be able to see, always know them, even how they were in the dark like this, the pupils so large they barely left a thin band of grey so pale it was almost white in the gloom.

"When we finally confront Marjolaine, take my lead. Let me be in charge of this. I do not think you understand how very dangerous she is." She placed her finger over the warden's lips when she began to protest. "I studied under her, Solona. She is the reason I am as good as I am at what I do. I am still quite intimately familiar with her, even though it has been a number of years since I knew her. I know her tactics, her style, her cruelty. I know how she seduces, I know what weapons she prefers, and I know that she would love to torture you just so she can make me watch. I will not keep you from accompanying us, but you  _must_  follow mine and Zevran's lead. This is the world he and I come from – we know best how to navigate it."

Solona's scowl softened only after a full minute of silence, Leliana staring pleadingly into her eyes. She kissed the finger meant to silence her and nodded her head, and then Leliana felt strong arms and warm hands wrap around her tightly. "You are my light, Leliana. I simply wish to keep that flame aglow. But you are right – I do not know this world from which you come, and therefore it is easy for me to forget how dangerous it is, how out of my element I truly am. I will follow your lead, as you say, and trust that you are more competent in this than I." A small kiss to the top of Leliana's head. "But if that  _bitch_  pulls a weapon on you, do not expect me to sit back and watch you duel while my own weapons remain sheathed."

Leliana smiled. "Oh, I would not want that. I long to see the look of surprise on her face, finally, when a seeming warrior instead turns her favorite dagger into a toad."

"Oooh, I like that idea. I wonder if I could do it with a normal spell?"

"I could teach you, Warden, since none of us seem able to sleep." Wynne approached cautiously.

Leliana let go of her lover and sat up, reaching out a hand to pet Max, who had come up to them at Wynne's side. "Oh, Wynne, I'm sorry. I did not even think- you are worried about him aren't you?"

A sad smile and a nod. "Yes. I cannot help but worry, even though, as you say, he is right in his element in this venture."

Solona, having sat up as well, patted the blanket next to them. "Come, sit. Distract yourself."

Wynne took the offer, crossing her legs and sitting in a single smooth move, proving that she was not as elderly as she liked to say she was. "Thank you, Solona. I fear I was doing an abysmal job of it on my own. As Max cannot speak, he, too, was not enough to keep my mind from wandering to desolate places."

Leliana placed a hand upon the mage's, taking it and stroking the back of it with her thumb. "Oh, Wynne. He will be fine. I apologize, however, for bringing this upon all of you-"

"Stop it right now, young woman." Wynne's finger pointed into Leliana's face, cutting her off. "You did not ask for this. If you brought this upon us, then Solona and Alistair also brought the darkspawn upon us. Is that what you think?"

"I- no, of course not! She did not ask us to follow – we chose it!"

Solona took her and roughly hugged her to her side. "Well, we are all here of our own volition – even Morrigan, though she believes she is stuck with us, even though Alistair and I told her she could go should she choose when she first joined our merry band. We are here to deal with this threat to you. Nobody  _asked_  anyone else to help, Leli. We all chose to."

Leliana frowned. "You are true friends. I do not wish to put you in danger."

Wynne smiled in a motherly way. "But we put ourselves in danger almost daily in order to keep everyone safe. We do not make an exception for you, my dear."

Leliana nodded, unable to keep a smile from her face as she snuggled further into Solona's side. Her life had indeed turned completely around from the lonely, vapid girl Marjolaine had turned into the chevaliers.

* * *

It took Zevran about a half an hour to sprint up the coast and slip into the city at the docks. He had not had to run like this in months, but the constant sparring and contact with darkspawn, coupled with the swiftness and light-footedness his race was known for, had kept him in enough shape that, while he was winded, he did not feel like dying once he arrived. It was a small matter to slip in among the elves of the city without his arms and armor, and he was at the Pearl in the blink of an eye.

Once there, he made directly for the proprietress, Sanga, who eyed him knowingly. "You need company for the night? I recognize you, elf. Your gold is more than welcome here."

He smiled. "Alas, I am no longer in a position to accept company for coin. However, I could use your help, and I am more than happy to pay for it."

Sanga regarded him for a moment, but was saved from answering when a commotion arose in the corner. Zevran turned to see a table turned on its side, cards flying in all directions. Four men stood, weapons drawn, but he couldn't see who it was they faced.

"Enough playing games Isabela! We want our money!"

Isabela? Surely it couldn't be her? The answering voice silenced his doubt, however. "I think you forget who you're speaking to," it said, and he could almost see the sway of her hips with the lilt of the voice. It was certainly amused, even if there was a hint of impenetrable steel underneath it. "I will give you  _one_  chance to leave quietly."

He smirked, knowing she was about to have some fun – especially when he heard their next words. "You brazen hussy! Someone needs to put you in your place!"

He settled back to watch, Sanga eyeing him. "So you know Captain Isabela, as well?"

"It's Captain now? I should have known she would inherit the ship." A questioning brow prompted him to explain. "I killed its former master, you see."

"Right. Of course you did." She clearly didn't believe him, but he didn't care. His attention was pulled by the violence happening in the corner.

Isabela had already unarmed two of the four men, almost bloodlessly. Zevran respected the move – she didn't want the proprietress's ire from blood on her floors. This was not some whorehouse on the docks – this was the Pearl, an establishment with a reputation for elegance. Before she could fully dispatch them, the other two surrendered, hauling their friends to their feet and running out of the building.

"Be off with you," she yelled, a gleam in her eyes that Zevran could see from where he stood across the room. "And be glad I only liberated you of the weight of your gold!"

Zevran began to clap, smirking. "Bravo, Isabela. Fine work, as always."

"Zevran?! What are you doing here?" She stalked forward, all hips and legs and breasts. "Come to apologize for leaving me bereft of my lord husband and then vanishing without a trace?" She draped herself over him, pushing that marvelous bosom directly into his chest.

He smiled, extricating himself from her pawing hands. "You know it was just business, Isabela. Business that turned out well for  _you_ , I see – you inherited the ship, I take it?"

She smiled like a cat that had just caught a mouse. "I never  _did_  like the greasy bastard. And the Siren treats me far better than  _he_  ever did. Though," she added, tracing a finger from his chest down to his stomach and latching into his belt, "not nearly as well as I treated  _you_  after you relieved me of him."

He chuckled. It was true – she had thanked him  _profusely_  after that. However, he was no longer free to take advantage of her advances, as welcome as they might have been the last time he was here. He took a step back, and her hand fell from his trousers. "Alas, I am no longer free to take you up on your offer, Isabela. I am, how do you say… spoken for."

Her eyes widened in shock. "And what happened to the depraved Antivan Crow I knew? Who was able to capture your heart?"

He smiled, picturing Wynne's face – and, admitted, her bosom. "A lovely woman, and I confess, it was  _I_  who courted  _her_."

She raised a brow. "I see. So what are you doing in a brothel?"

"It is a long story. Do you have the time?"

She laughed. "Buy me a drink, and we'll see."

* * *

"I do not understand why we all must put ourselves in danger for that  _wench_ ," Morrigan hissed, standing very close to Alistair, the both of them on watch.

He frowned down at her. "No one asked you to, Morrigan. You are welcome to stay here and watch the horses. Though," he added, taking a step away, "good luck getting help should any old demons come after  _you_."

An image of her mother, transforming into her more terrifying shapes, danced before her eyes, and she could not suppress the shudder. She would do it for Solona, not for the Chantry tart. Oh, how she despised that woman. Her singing in the evening, playing that infernal instrument Alistair had procured for her. Her talk of the Maker and His eternal love. Her insistence that she and Morrigan speak when they were on watch together. Her moralistic rants about not killing those who were innocent – as if anyone was innocent! You were merely stronger or weaker than those around you.

But she would help this wench, because she was frightened of her mother succeeding. She couldn't admit she was frightened of things, but this – this she could admit to finding terrifying. Her mother and her demon – who were one and the same now – possessing Morrigan's body, sending her soul permanently to the Fade, or worse, cannibalizing it, leaving her with no mind, no identity. The thought was beyond terrifying, and if helping the Orlesian whore ensured her Solona's aid, then Morrigan would do it.

Plus, she needed to see this through to the end. It was the only way to get the power, and she needed Alistair to be a willing participant…

Alistair was only able to take a few steps away from her when a twig cracking caught both their attention. Out of the murky trees materialized Zevran, leading… a woman. Morrigan was tempted to use "scantily-clad" as a descriptor, but the woman was technically covered from head to toe. She wore tight leggings, knee-high boots, and a poet's shirt. It was quite open at the bosom, showing her cleavage to good advantage, but Morrigan herself did that. And yet the woman  _oozed_  sexuality. The mage narrowed her eyes, cocking out a hip as she crossed her arms.

"It shouldn't be a surprising that we send you to a brothel and you come back with a whore."

The woman just laughed, an almost deep, throaty sound full of amusement. "Oh, I like her, Zevran. Do you think she'll let me take her for a spin?"

Zevran smirked, shaking his head. "Alas, Isabela, I think you will have a hard time convincing her to open up in  _any_  way."

Morrigan narrowed her eyes. "I am  _right here_ , you know. No need to speak about me opening my legs in the third person."

"You are, Lady. Please forgive me," the woman said, a smile on her lips and in her voice. She stalked closer to the mage, who frowned at her. Morrigan could see an ample bosom and dark skin – though not quite as dark as Solona's – as the woman came closer, long legs shown to good advantage despite being technically covered. Her look was rounded out with a blue bandana holding the woman's hair out of her face, her throat and ears adorned with more than a few pieces of gold jewelry.

The woman came right up to her and leaned in, completely invading Morrigan's larger-than-normal personal space. "Will you spread your legs for me? I promise, you will enjoy it." A finger trailed down Morrigan's exposed arm.

She yanked her arm away, unable to keep a sneer from her face. "Indeed, I will  _not_."

"But you had no problems with a prostitute from the Pearl the last time we were in the city," Zevran pointed out, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Alistair snickered, failing to hide his smile behind his hand.

"Oh… Sod off!" Morrigan shouted her answer, words she had never uttered before in her life, turning on her heel and walking away from them, their laughter following her as she marched into the main camp. They weren't far behind, but she refused to look at them as they made quick introductions with Alistair, the whore flirting with him immediately. Childish. She may as well be surrounded by children.

Solona was on her feet already when they came through the trees. "Who is this, Zevran?"

"Oh, I like her, Zevran. Is she the one who captured your heart? And your manhood?" The new woman made a rude gesture at her crotch.

"Uh… no, Isabela. This is the other Grey Warden. And the woman you met is Morrigan, and that mountain of a qunari is Sten."

"Oh, I've always wondered what it might be like with one of those…"

Morrigan narrowed her eyes but said nothing. She watched as Leliana walked more slowly into the ring, Wynne at her side.

"Oh, perhaps it is this red-haired beauty here who has taken you away from me, Zev." She trailed a finger down his arm before stepping closer to Leliana, almost prowling like a cat. Leliana frowned, moving closer to Solona and wrapping an arm around the taller woman's waist. Morrigan rolled her eyes at the possessive gesture.

"Zevran is not the type of company I generally keep, milady," Leliana spoke, indicating the clearly amused mage warden was hers.

The woman's eyes gleamed in an almost predatory way, her eyes clearly raking up and down both Leliana and Solona. "I do not blame you for your choice. Us Rivaini women  _are_  spectacular." Her eyes snapped to Leliana's. "I'm okay with sharing if  _you_  are. And perhaps Zevran, too…"

"No," Zevran said, striding forward to stand next to the eldest of the mages. Morrigan scowled as the elf took Wynne's hand, wrapping his arm about her shoulders. "No, it is not the warden or her Lady who have stolen my heart, but this magnificent woman here."

Morrigan smirked.  _That_  revelation certainly shut the whore up. Her jaw had fallen open, her hands limply at her sides, her strut all but lost. Of course, the hardening around Wynne's eyes had not gone unnoticed to the witch, nor did the elder mage's soft smile when the assassin so brazenly claimed her as his own. Morrigant wished to vomit.

"But bedding the lot of us is not why I asked for your help, Isabela," Zevran continued, letting go of the elder mage and stepping closer to the woman – Isabela, as was clearly her name. Morrigan wanted to retch at the matching smiles of affection of Alistair and Leliana's faces as they watched Zevran and Wynne's interaction. Oh, but their approval of the unlikely romance made her desire to retch all the stronger.

"Enough," Morrigan finally spat, calling all their attention to her. "You have gone and returned with someone. So what is your plan, Zevran?"

He turned deadly serious. "It is simple, if not easy. Tonight, we walk into Denerim. Tomorrow night, we kill ourselves a bard."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know how you feel about the flashback/memory. I wasn't sure about it, but it felt in keeping with the history I'd built for Leliana. I wanted Marjolaine to be a truly terrifying figure in her memory because of what she was capable of doing, even to one she purported to love. I hope this got that across, without being too cruel or triggering.


	30. A Visit

"I don't know…"

"Nonsense. That mark on your face is pretty, and I just bet it has a good story, and while I would love to see what it looks like between my legs – or your lovely bard's legs – it is entirely too noticeable for what we have planned. It's bad enough you're so tall; we have to cover it up." Isabela looked pointedly up at the top of Solona's head. "And your hair."

They had long gotten over Isabela's lewd language and her seeming need to proposition everyone. At least, Solona and Leliana had. Wynne was clearly a little uncomfortable with it, Alistair's face was a permanent shade of red, and Morrigan huffed and rolled her eyes every single time. Zevran responded to it like it was a game, escalating it to truly masterful levels of obscenity, but made sure to leave his love out of it, on which the pirate – as they had come to know her – miraculously followed his lead.

Now Solona sat on an upturned crate in a half-empty warehouse, waiting for the dead of night. The pirate had gone out to gather supplies from her ship, and now stood before her, a foul-smelling oily substance in a tub in her hand.

"She is right, Solona," Leliana said. "You simply stand out among most of Ferelden's citizens far too well."

Solona sighed, surrendering at her lover's words. "Fine. Do what you will."

Isabela's eyes danced. "Oh,  _what_  an offer!"

"No! Not-"

The pirate pouted. "You keep saying these things; soon, I will have to take you seriously." At the last, she grinned.

Solona groaned. "Just do it already!" She realized what she said as it left her mouth. Leliana snorted, covering her hand with her mouth. Solona glared, but didn't trust herself not to inadvertently proposition the pirate a third time. Sealing her lips tight, she offered her hair.

At least it was serving as a proper distraction to Leliana. This was the first time Solona simply could not read her bard, could not tell if she was upset or determined – or perhaps both? She thought Leliana would be frightened, and while there was definitely an undertone of urgency, of dealing with this threat as swiftly as possible, if Leliana was afraid then it was only fueling her. Honestly, if Solona had to guess – which was what she was left with, as Leliana would not speak about it until it was done – she'd say that Leliana was  _angry_.

Though at the moment that was hidden behind jokes and conversation with the flirty pirate.

"I will do it," Leliana offered, and Solona smiled to herself. Her bard would not want another's fingers dancing through Solona's hair, especially not the pirate, who had proved more lecherous even than Zevran. Familiar fingers took her head, and then she was surrounded by the foul-smelling concoction, powerful enough to block out even Leliana's signature scent. "I have used something like this before, Solona. The smell will dissipate by the time we venture out. But it will take many washings for the color to vanish completely."

Solona grunted an acknowledgement. When the bard was through, the pirate took her face and applied a cosmetic over her tattoo, eventually moving on to the rest of her face. "Why my whole face?"

"Because," Isabela answered, looking slightly agitated, "the darkest shade I could find is just lighter than my own skin. So I have to blend it in over all your exposed skin, I'm afraid. The rest will have to be done by the darkness."

"You sound a little bitter about that," Solona observed.

"I'm just a little tired of being surrounded by people who think my dark skin is exotic. Aren't you?"

"I suppose. But I grew up here – I've never known any different."

The pirate stopped what she was doing a moment, causing Solona to open her eyes. She was momentarily stunned by the woman's amber eyes, so different from any she'd seen. "You've never been to Rivain? Not even as a child?"

She shook her head. "No. My parents are Ferelden, and I was in the Circle from the age of five until just a few months ago."

The pirate narrowed her eyes, continuing her work on Solona's face. "Well, that won't do. But it explains why you don't even have rings in your ears."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

The pirate snorted. "No Rivaini woman worth her salt would be without jewelry. That's a Ferelden thing."

Solona knit her brows, her eyes once again closed. "I… had no idea."

"It is the mark of Ferelden, to be so austere," Leliana commented. "But Rivaini women take it to a degree that shames even the nobles of Orlais."

The pirate snorted again. "That's an understatement. Except Orlesian women wear all that jewelry for fashion – Rivaini women are a superstitious lot. If our necks are unadorned, we will never have children. If our ears are empty, demons can get in to our heads. We wear fertility charms and only some of our shaman women are the real thing, but that doesn't seem to matter." She stopped. " _You're_  the real thing, I take it?"

"The real  _what_  thing?"

"A mage."

Solona chuckled. "Yes. Hence being stuck in the Circle."

"Right." She felt the woman's fingers leave her skin. "There, you're finished."

Solona opened her eyes, looking straight into a mirror. Her skin was several shades lighter, but otherwise looked natural, if covered in cosmetic, the tattoo vanished underneath it without a trace. Her hair and eyebrows were a very dark shade of brown, and shiny with oil, but she was assured that it would dry without the stench, and she trusted her lover to tell her the truth.

As she turned her face this way and that, she asked Isabela something that had seemed odd to her. "So, if you speak with such contempt, why do you still wear so much jewelry?"

The pirate laughed. "A fair question! I like how it looks, point-of-fact. That, and the tan lines would be  _terrible_  by this point – I've been wearing these things since I was sold to my late husband. They were his wedding gift to me. Though now I view them more as a trophy, a reminder that I'm rid of him."

"Not a fan of the man, then?"

"I was his plaything," she explained, going to wash her hands after Leliana in a basin. "A  _prized_   _possession_. And when Zevran freed me from him… well, I made what life for myself I could." She grinned. "A ship, full of strapping young lads who change frequently from port to port. Even a buxom young woman from time to time! Who could want for more?"

Solona knit her brows. "Love isn't something you're interested in, I take it?"

The pirate snorted, drying her hands on a towel Leliana handed her. "Love isn't for me. It's sweet to see in you two – you're both  _adorable_. But I find life to be much easier this way."

"'Tis the first  _sensible_  thing you've said this whole time." Morrigan revealed that she was listening. Solona smirked; she acted as though she didn't care about any of them, yet she couldn't help but eavesdrop on their idle chit-chat.

"And yet you won't let me show you how  _many_  things women are good for," the pirate shot back, somehow pouting and grinning at the same time.

Morrigan narrowed her eyes before looking back down at the book she'd been ostensibly reading while they spoke of Rivain and Isabela's previous life.

"Well done. I'll need to remember that," Solona muttered, looking up at the pirate, impressed. "We never know how to shut her up."

The pirate sniffed. "She doesn't strike me as someone who can take a joke, or who knows how to deal with people. And the idea of a pair of breasts pressed into her face makes her far too uncomfortable. Just go with that, and you'll probably always be able to disarm her."

Solona nodded, smirking. "That sounds like Morrigan, all right." She paused for a moment, then, "Isabela. Why are you helping us?"

The pirate seemed taken off-guard by the question. "I… Well, it sounds like a great deal of fun. Dueling with a bard master from Orlais. There's nothing like a good duel to get the juices flowing, in my opinion. Too bad not a single one of you will bed me after."

Solona didn't think that was the whole reason, though she was sure the pirate did enjoy a good fight. Leliana, however, was the one who pushed the subject. "While I don't doubt that's true, what's the real reason? Marjolaine is  _dangerous_. She is cruel, and is very skilled in getting information that she can use against you. She is not to be taken lightly."

The pirate's eyes actually softened. She sighed. "Because, Leliana. I owe Zevran more than you know. And because I foolishly have a heart that cries against the kind of cruelty she's visited upon you, even though I know nothing of you except what Zevran has told me." She slumped to a seat on the crate next to Solona. "I know it seems off, a pirate with compassion. I often take jobs for snakes. I'm actually leaving soon on one, I'm just awaiting final rendezvous instructions for the cargo. But I have my own honor code, and your bard master broke it masterfully when I was at the Pearl a few nights ago."

Leliana's eyebrows furrowed, her voice low in a way that suggested she already knew the answer to her question. "What did she do?"

The pirate hesitated. "She… left a girl lame, a girl I was rather fond of, actually. Prostitutes are people, but she treated this girl like a dog. I'll be surprised if she'll ever be able to open her legs to  _anyone_  again. Think about that – think about how badly she was injured, for a  _prostitute_  to be so traumatized that she couldn't have sex again." Her anger was almost palpable, the disgust dripping from her voice. "That woman raped and beat her. And then she paid her for the privilege, as if… ugh, I don't even have words."

"I…" Solona couldn't think of what to say. But she was thoroughly convinced that they were doing the world a favor with their current mission. Marjolaine was a cancer on this world, and cutting it out was the only way to be rid of it.

They were stopped from further talk by Zevran and Alistair coming into the room, both carrying large bundles. "It is time," the elf said, unrolling his bundle to reveal the all-black clothing they would be wearing.

* * *

Leliana followed Isabela through the dark streets of the city, her head covered by the hood of her cloak. Behind her followed Morrigan. Leliana, as the subject of Marjolaine's ire, needed to remain hidden in the shadows. Isabela was the leader of her group, and knew the city well, and even more importantly, knew the  _shadows_  of the city well. They were stuck with Morrigan because she could stay quiet, and she much preferred their company to that of the dog, Wynne, or Zevran – her other choice.

They had split up, the taller members of their group going through the streets posing as a rowdy band of mercenaries, unable to hide their tall clunkiness in the shadows, but their plan making the need unnecessary. So Solona, Alistair, and Sten had headed out with directions on where to meet them, leaving the rest to make their way in the shadows.

Zevran led the remainder of their merry band of cutthroats (at least, cutthroats  _this_  night). As an elf, he would be conspicuous among those posing as mercenaries, so he needed to stay hidden. He also knew  _how_  to stay hidden, very well. With him were Wynne, also out of place among mercenaries, and Max, capable of sneaking up on a wild deer and killing it with his bare teeth – but also out of place among mercenaries, as mabari were not mere pets.

They were to meet at a house, a large estate on the outskirts of the city with a good view of both the ocean and the countryside. Leliana could not figure it out: it was not very defensible, far away from most of the rest of the city as it was, and Marjolaine was smart enough not to choose a pretty view over safety.  _Unless she does not think me a true threat_ , Leliana thought, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips as she hurried silently behind Isabela. The thought did nothing to quell her churning gut.

An hour passed like this, neither of her companions making a single noise, not even when Morrigan stepped in something unpleasant. Leliana only knew because she'd felt the mage's presence recede, and when she looked back, she found Morrigan shaking her foot with a scowl on her face, a puddle of muck below her. The mage hurried back in line, shaking her head once at Leliana, and they continued on, coming to the shadowy corner nearest the north side of the estate in continued silence.

"What now?" Morrigan's scowl appeared in the scant moonlight that penetrated into the alleyway.

A slight snort came from the complete darkness where the moon didn't penetrate, followed by Isabela's whispered voice. "Now we wait for the drunken revelers."

A slight sound came to Leliana, and her heart began hammering. This plan of theirs was crazy, but it just might work because of it. "It appears we will not need to wait very long."

"Are they singing…?"

"Yes.  _The Elf Knocked Up The Dwarf_ ," Isabela whispere. "Ah, it is one of my favorites."

"What in the world are you talking about?" Morrigan's scowl changed to one of haughty confusion, a look only Morrigan could pull off.

"It is a drinking song," Leliana supplied, listening to be able to distinguish their voices. Indeed, Alistair's tone-deaf half-sing, half-shout reached her ears, followed by Solona's more melodious voice, low and husky in her pretend drunkenness. A third hum reached her, deep and scratchy, and she snickered. "They even taught the tune to Sten!"

"Oh, I  _have_  to see this!" Isabela moved to the edge of the building to watch, Leliana tucking herself beneath the pirate, ignoring the feel of the woman's body pressing against her, and a moment later, the three tall warriors burst out from a street on the other side of the estate, nearest the front entrance, singing and leaning on each other a little sloppily. Well, Alistair and Solona leaned on each other. Sten stood stoically behind them, humming and watching them curiously. Clearly, this was the best way he knew how to "play along."

In the distance, a head poked out from the front doors of the estate. "Hey, you! Move along!"

Suddenly, one of them reared back – it was hard to tell if it was Alistair or Solona from this distance – and tried to punch the other. Very quickly, a fight broke out between them, and the guard from the estate ran out to try to break it up.

"That's our cue," Isabela whispered jovially, and then her body was gone from Leliana's, the pirate hurrying off in the opposite direction, skirting the dark around the estate while their companions "drunkenly" argued with the guard, Leliana and Morrigan following at her heels. A few tense minutes later had them over the gate behind the estate, where they found Zevran, Wynne, and Max already lying in wait.

"Shall we, then?" Zevran's eyes' sparkled in the dark as he whispered so quietly that she had to read his lips.

Leliana produced her lockpick kit with a wicked grin and got to work. The idea in this entire ruse was that the drunken revelers would draw all the attention of those in the house to the front of the estate, allowing the others to come in through the back. From there, it was a simple matter of overwhelming anyone they met inside, and hoping that Alistair, Solona, and Sten could handle themselves and meet them inside. No one seemed worried about them: after all, they'd felled a dragon; they could handle a few of Marjolaine's thugs.

With a satisfied "ah," she felt the lock give, and she pushed it open a fraction of an inch, feeling along the jam for triggers that would spring a trap.

"What is taking so long?" Morrigan hissed.

Leliana frowned. "There's nothing here…"

"So what is the problem?!"

Zevran answered her. "It is highly suspicious of such a person to not employ  _some_  kind of subterfuge as defense, especially if she is  _expecting_  Leliana to show up. We will need to move very carefully. Don't touch anything, and follow our lead."

Leliana was already opening the door, finding herself in a dimly lit hallway. Crouching, she looked for telltale signs of a pressure plate or something equally devious, but nothing stood out. Taking a cautious step, she was inside the threshold, looking everywhere but at the single lamp at the end of the hallway. It just did not add up.

"Leliana, I see the problem." Leliana looked back to Zevran, who was looking above her and off to the left. Following his line of sight, she found the small string running from floor to ceiling just past where the door would run. Had she moved any further to the left, she would have hit it.

"How is it convenient to trap your own home?" Wynne wondered in a whisper.

Leliana smiled sadly. "It is not. But it is not about convenience. It is about being a spy and expecting others to invade your home. Come. Let us be done with this thing."

She led them forward, making sure they were careful to avoid the string, the only trap she could find, and made her way down the hallway, away from the lamp at the end of the hall.

* * *

Solona ducked Alistair's fist, which he knew she would do, allowing him to punch the guard in the face. They weren't actually drunk, but pretending to be had been rather fun. Now, though, it was quickly changing from a fake-drunk fight to an all-out knock-out of the three guards who had come to break them up. Alistair shook his fist, making a mental note to not punch people when he wasn't wearing gauntlets, and drove his foot into the guard's shin, making him holler in pain.

Sten took care of the rest, pushing the man over hard enough to knock him out – which it did – and taking the other two by the shoulders and ramming their helmet-less heads together. As they crumpled to the ground, Alistair looked around, seeing no one else. "All right, ladies," he quipped, a cheeky grin on his face. "Grab yourself a thug and let's go, shall we?"

Each carrying an unconscious man, they abandoned their ruse of drunkenness and hurried onto the grounds of the estate. It was small, but with far more land than a house in the city generally had. Dumping the unconscious men on the porch, they quickly tied their hands and feet, making sure that if they woke up they would not be joining the party inside the house anytime soon.

"All right, Sten, time to kick in the door."

He frowned, flipping his hood from his head and bending at the waist. He backed up, took two running steps, and plowed through the door with the horns upon his head. The door didn't even seem to have acted as an obstacle.

"Well, that's  _one_  way to do it," Solona muttered, shaking her head and following the qunari through the door as she pulled the sword she procured atop the mountain. Alistair took up the rear, drawing his own sword, the close quarters of the house not permitting the use of his shield. Sten wasn't even bothering with weapons, he was so big and the dimensions inside a typical dwelling so small in comparison.

Once inside, they were met with a few more thugs, these ones armed with knives. Alistair didn't even get in on the action, however, as with a duck to the side and a shove, Sten took care of all of them. One fell on another's sword, and the two survivors were run through by Solona's sword and dagger. The mage was probably bristling with magical energy right now, her inability to use it in such close proximity to the templars of the city just adding frustration to her righteous anger. Alistair didn't blame her.

His heart had nearly dropped out of his chest and onto the forest floor when Leliana had been attacked. He hadn't been sure of whose scream it had been. But Solona had taken off immediately, grabbing her sword almost as an afterthought. Realization struck him when the sword had immediately begun to glow, just like her eyes, and he had run after her, not bothering with a shirt or boots as he grabbed his sword from out of its sheath by his tent.

Seeing the naked woman huddled there had almost undone him. He had killed those bandits with a savagery he didn't even unleash for darkspawn, and was rivaled only by Solona. He had almost rushed to the bard's side, but held himself in check as Solona beat him there, holding her and shielding her from view even as she asked him, with a desperation he'd never heard before, to find  _something_  that would tell them why these men were here, why they had singled out and attacked  _Leliana_. He'd been breathing hard still, a red haze creeping around the edge of his vision, and he'd had to be very careful to keep from ripping the dead bodies to shreds as he had searched them.

When he'd learned that it had been Marjolaine, the woman who'd had Leliana tortured for the crime the woman herself had committed, he had felt the same righteous anger he could see in his fellow warden. She, at least, had an outlet, hovering over Leliana and driving the bard crazy with her protectiveness. Alistair, on the other hand, had been left with pacing. He'd felt ridiculous, but he'd had no idea what else to do. He couldn't go after the woman, he couldn't come up with a plan, he couldn't focus on anything for his anger – he had to get his energy out of himself  _somehow_.

He had agreed to Zevran's plan at first out of desperation to  _act_. He hadn't even really listened to it. But it did start to make more and more sense as he had followed, unarmored, behind Zevran, sneaking into the city. He knew he couldn't sneak when it would really matter, and neither could Solona. Sten, while he  _could_  be completely and totally silent – eerily so, for someone so large – was just too big to be allowed. So they were the bait to draw the attention while the others actually snuck in. Between the two groups, they could take any guards or thugs who might be waiting inside.

Speaking of which, now that the thugs were down, they had no one left to face. They were supposed to meet the others here inside, but they were not in sight. They should show up soon, though – now that the bulky warriors had made so much noise, speed and numbers would be their friends, not stealth or surprise. As soon as he had the thought, Zevran appeared running around the corner, the rest on his heels. Max gave a quiet chuff and run forward, bumping his big head into Solona's hip. She patted his head, a frown on her face, murmuring something to him before looking up to make eye contact with her lover.

"No problems?"

The bard shrugged. "A minor trap near the door. Nothing Zevran and I could not spot."

The mage nodded, her eyes hard, her mouth set in a line. "Good. Let's do this."

* * *

It was at the top of the second set of stairs that they found her. She sat at her vanity, a young woman brushing her long, luscious brown hair. Leliana could not help but notice that there were a few obvious patches of grey. It only served to make her look more distinguished.

_Long, luxurious brown hair slides through her hands. It is soft, straight, passing through the brush in her hand with very little resistance. She loves this hair when it passes through her fingers; over the skin of her stomach and breasts; when it whirls behind the woman as she turns, either during a dance or with a hidden dagger appearing in her hand. She loves plaiting the long hair in ever more complicated styles, using what she had learned in Lady Cecile's home now, in her new home, with Marjolaine._

With the small move of the door Leliana made to peek through it, Marjolaine straightened her back, the young woman's hand stilling as she responded to the older bard's sudden alertness.

_A short woman with brown hair approaches her. She is unremarkable, and yet stunningly beautiful. Her proud bearing belies her true height, which is only an inch or two above Leliana's own. She smiles, her green eyes travelling up and down Leliana's form in a way that makes her body shudder with something she has never felt before: desire. It is a new feeling, and as the woman passes her, keeping eye contact, Leliana decides to seek her out, chasing that feeling that traveled down her spine not a moment ago._

The older woman lifted her eyes to the mirror in front of her, green eyes – simultaneously cold like ice and burning with fire – locking with Leliana's cool blue in the glass.

_She cries out as her body reaches its climax, holding on tightly to Marjolaine's body arched above hers. Their skin is hot where it touches. Her dress, a birthday present from Cecile, lies on the floor of the brunette's bedchamber. Leliana has never felt such a sweet, sweet pleasure, nor has she experienced such a release of pent-up energy and emotion, in her life. It is only just over, and she cannot wait to try it again. Marjolaine pulls away enough to kiss her, and she looks into those pale green eyes and sees an emotion she cannot name. Affection? Possession? Desire? She cannot decide. But it burns in her eyes like fire, and fills Leliana with an ominous kind of anticipation. Of what, she doesn't know._

_Later, years later, she stares into those eyes as they mock her. Marjolaine gloats that she was cleverer than Leliana; that Leliana should not have tried to cross her. But all Leliana can do is look into those eyes disbelievingly. They used to be filled with love, lust, passion, possession, and a touch of jealousy whenever Leliana would take another lover. Now, all they do is mock her, and she despairs that she cannot see those things in her eyes any longer. It occurs to her that Marjolaine is so good an actress that she can even make her eyes lie._

Marjolaine smiles into the mirror, making Leliana's heart drop through her stomach.

_She lives for making Marjolaine smile. Everything she does, she does for the older woman's approval. Every kill, seduction, theft; every life ruined; every move of The Game she plays for that smile. Sweating and aching, she longs for the heartfelt laugh and smile she gets from her mentor when she brings the woman to climax, usually while tied to the bed, welts from the older bard's hands rising on her bottom, marks from Marjolaine's nails standing out red and stark against her pale skin. But she loves it. Because she loves that smile. She lives for that smile._

"Leliana, so good to see you again, my pet. I admit, you arrived more quickly than I had anticipated. You remain as good as you ever were, my pretty little thing."

 _That voice_. The familiarities it utters. They would have brought Leliana to her knees had she not already been crouched outside the door.

_The older bard's voice rises and falls in melody, even when she speaks. She speaks like one highly born, knows so many languages, and can sing in all of them. Her least favorite is the common tongue of Ferelden, the language of Leliana's mother, so Leliana does not speak it around her. For she longs to hear that voice, hear its rise and fall, hear its whispers in her ears before and after her flesh is stroked or struck, to hear its crescendo as the older bard takes her pleasure from her protégé. The sound of it sends thrills down Leliana's spine, and a single word from Marjolaine can sweep Leliana off her feet. It is the epitome of Leliana's desire, her passion. Later, it is the voice of her greatest humiliation, her greatest tormentor._

"Leliana." Zevran's voice appeared at her ear. It was so low that even Leliana could barely hear it, even with Zevran's face pressed to her cheek as he spoke. "Go in and confront her. You are not the woman you once were. She will do her best to demean you. You are above that. She no longer harbors power over you."

She crouched for another moment, completely still, before she nodded, once, and mouthed, "Thank you." Then she stood, not taking her eyes off of Marjolaine's in the glass. In a whisper, she requested Solona, Alistair, and Zevran, knowing that too many in a single room would only work against them. The others could guard their back.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open just widely enough for them to make their way through and stepped to the center of the room. Without taking her eyes off of Marjolaine, Leliana noted that the young woman with her was not the only young servant in the room. Judging by their bearing and attention, they were apprentices like Leliana had been, meaning they were far more dangerous than they looked. But the most dangerous of all had remained seated, only now turning to face Leliana directly.

"Hello, Marjolaine, I see you were expecting me," Leliana said, speaking in the common tongue, which she knew would grate upon the bard's ears, even accented as Leliana's voice was.

The bard tutted before responding in Orlesian. "No no no, my pet. You know very well how I hate that bastard language. Even in this country, I do try to keep up appearances. Speak our language, my pet. Show me at least an  _ounce_  of respect in my own home. I do try to keep it nice for you, but there is only so much I can do." She paused, tilting her head. Leliana had not moved, simply standing side-by-side with Zevran, the two taller wardens behind them. She could feel Solona's presence, even if the mage did not touch her, and it calmed her nerves. They could do this. They had felled a dragon, found Andraste's Ashes. Marjolaine was not worthy of those feats. They would defeat her.

The older bard continued. "You must pardon the shabby accommodations. This country, it smells like wet dog. Nothing I do can keep the stench out. I apologize for that. Though," she said, pausing and putting on a show of examining Leliana's companions – they clearly were found wanting – "given your company of late, perhaps you do not even notice it."

Leliana narrowed her eyes. Marjolaine was stalling. In her periphery, she saw a third person show himself. The redhead had known he was there – he was sloppy, she could hear his footfalls, feel his presence in the room. Perhaps he was new? A sloppy bard – or, in this case, a sloppy troubador – was a dead one. That could work in her favor. Still, she did not move, did not open her mouth to say anything more. The older bard was a master manipulator – she would not give her any material to use against them.

The older bard finally stood, drawing herself to her full height – still only a couple of inches above Leliana's own. The redhead held back a smirk – Marjolaine  _hated_  women who were taller than she was, and Solona fit that description beautifully. As she looked up at the group, Leliana could see the slight frown in Marjolaine's eyes as she looked upon the warriors, likely disapproving of Solona's dark skin, her dark hair, her great height. Marjolaine favored pale skin; exotic hair and eyes; short, delicate, petite women. And while Solona's eyes were indeed exotic – not to mention the true color of her hair – Marjolaine probably could not see the beauty there for the features the older bard so disapproved of.

Finally, Leliana spoke, again in the common tongue. "I am here, at your invitation, Marjolaine. What do you want? Why do you want me dead so?"

The woman pursed her lips. She held herself with great poise, but Leliana was not fooled – her dress was beautiful, but practical, with the sleeves billowing only to the elbow; the skirts billowed in such a way as to hide several key weapons; even her shoes were of a type to not impede her should she need to fight or make a quick escape. She was every inch the professional bard, even now, in the comfort of her own home.

When she spoke, Leliana could detect the slight irritation she knew she caused when she refused to speak to the woman in her preferred language. "Yes." Still Orlesian. "I knew you would be able to take care of those filthy men I sent after you. It  _was_  an invitation. They were sent to give you cause to come to me. And see? Here you are."

Leliana made sure not to react to this. It was not new information, certainly. "Well, Marjolaine, I am here. What did you want? Why are you in Ferelden, a country you so despise?"

A further hardening of the older bard's eyes. "Very well, I will continue in this  _filthy_ language _._  You are my guest, after all…" She took a step forward. Leliana narrowed her eyes a little – the woman was not as graceful as Leliana remembered. Her step made a sound, which was always a mistake. How could you sneak if you could not even be silent when you were standing still?

Perhaps it was a trap, to lull Leliana into a false sense of security?

Marjolaine continued in the common tongue. "You have knowledge that you could use against me, Leliana. For my own safety, I cannot let you be." Her voice was thickly accented, a little low and a little rough as she pronounced the words, as though around a thick wad of cloth in her mouth. "Did you think I did not know where you were? Did you think I would not watch my Leliana? 'What is she up to?' I thought. 'The quiet life, the peasant clothes, hair ragged and messy like a boy. This is not her.'" She paused, narrowing her eyes. "You were planning something, so I watched. But no letters were sent, no messages – you barely spoke to anyone. Clever Leliana.  _Very_  clever. You almost had me fooled. But then you left the Chantry so suddenly. What conclusion should I draw? You tell me."

She felt both Solona and Alistair tense behind her. But they remained still, did not burst forth with any rash words or actions. Leliana narrowed her eyes, her arms crossed over her chest in a seemingly-weak position, one that would not allow her to defend herself should a blade reveal itself. But she knew how to do so, and so kept herself seeming as though she had forgotten her training, perhaps lulling them to a false security.

"I left the Chantry because I did not wish to become like you, Marjolaine."

"Oh, but you are too late, my pretty thing," the bard exclaimed. "We are one and the same. You cannot escape it. Do you know why you were a master manipulator, Leliana? It is because you  _enjoyed_  The Game. You  _reveled_  in the power it gave you. You cannot change or deny this."

Marjolaine's words no longer sliced through the redhead. She had been through the Gauntlet, had felled a dragon, had seen the rebirth of Andraste's chosen line of arcane warriors in the woman she loved with all her heart. This shadow from her past could not cow her.

Leliana nodded, once. "I loved the Game, Marjolaine, it is true. But it was always for you – my love for you engulfed me, took me over and made me blind. I am no longer blind, Marjolaine – I can see, quite clearly, and I will not fall under your sway again. You cannot fool me to my death."

The older bard frowned. "I do not think you understand, my pet. I want you  _back_. You are  _good_ , and I believe we can put our misunderstanding behind us." She spread her hands out in a conciliatory gesture. "And if we cannot, you will not leave here alive – and neither will your friends."

She felt both Solona and Alistair tense behind her, could hear the leather of their grips on their swords. But they continued to stay still, taking hers and Zevran's lead. Zevran remained still and silent, his ever-present vaguely pleasant smile upon his face, his perfect weapon for disarming an opponent.

Personally, she could not believe the older bard's audacity. She had turned Leliana in, framed her, had her tortured and raped, just so she  _herself_  would not pay for her crimes. And she had known  _exactly_  what she was doing.

She couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. And Marjolaine clearly didn't like  _that_. "Why do you mock me, Leliana? You are smart, strong, you survived the chevaliers, you escaped a place that is unescapable, and you hid in plain sight in the  _Chantry_  in that tiny little town near the Wilds. Why would I not want you back?"

Leliana smirked. "Why would I join you, then? If I am so strong and smart?"

Marjolaine smiled – an acidic thing that did not match the one she had given to Leliana earlier. It held no humor, no approval, simply an unvoiced statement from moments before: join her or die.

She felt Solona relax behind her, and she knew the mage would stick to the promise she had made the previous night. She smiled, even as Marjolaine jumped back, producing a weapon from the folds of her skirt that Leliana knew would appear. But something was wrong with the woman's movements. They were off, almost clunky in comparison to Leliana's memories of her. The time it took for the knife to come up would have been enough time for Leliana to knock it out of her grip. She saw the woman's foot catch on a floorboard, hitching her step.

_Marjolaine turns as Leliana rushes her, and Leliana quickly finds herself on the floor. She is softly reprimanded before she attempts the maneuver again. Marjolaine hardly lets Leliana touch her, her feet moving in a dance the young woman cannot see. The final time she hits the ground, her mentor is atop her, purring that perhaps it is time to leave lessons for later, dragging the young woman off to bed._

What was wrong with her? Leliana followed her movements, pressing the offense with a hidden dagger, knowing enough about a true knife-fight like this to leave one hand free for grabbing. Marjolaine's knife sliced through the air, intended to catch Leliana in the armpit, but the redhead merely caught the bard's wrist, digging her thumb into the pressure point along the botton mercilessly. The older bard let out a cry, equal parts confusion and pain, letting go of her knife under Leliana's cruelly-strong grip.

Something was definitely off. Either this was too easy, or her memory had drawn Marjolaine to be far better than she actually was. Her movements were off. There was only one trap in the house. Her hired thugs were not even a small challenge for her friends. Was she always like this, and Leliana just never saw her incompetence? Did Leliana herself make Marjolaine more menacing and dangerous while she had studied under her?

Bearing down upon her, Leliana twisted her wrist back, bringing her own blade to the older bard's throat as the woman sank to her knees. The answer to her questions came with razor-sharp clarity at that moment, her eyes locking with those pale green ones that had used to hold so much of her mind, body, and soul.

"You. You are not the woman I thought you were. I thought you dangerous. I thought you quick, ruthlessly efficient. But you are nothing, Marjolaine. You are a shadow of the woman you were. Or perhaps," she continued, driving the woman further toward the ground, completely unmindful of the flurry of activity behind and around her. "Perhaps you never were as good as I thought. Perhaps your weapons are seduction and infatuation, like any good bard, and I was simply under that spell. Whatever the reason, you are found wanting. You have no power over me anymore, Marjolaine. You are weak. I walk the Maker's path set aside for me, and it is the righteous whose path He guides. You walk no path, you have no greater purpose. You are but a piece of filth that must be tossed away."

And with that final declaration, her knife dipped, sliding across the older bard's throat effortlessly. Time stood still. As the light fled Marjolaine's eyes, all Leliana's memories of her mentor flooded through her. Most of them involved some kind of trepidation. She realized fully that she was never in love, not like what she had for Solona, not the deep, soul-abiding love that could not be shaken. It was a stable thing, with plenty of passion, but which had a wellspring beneath to feed it, allowing them to disagree and still love each other, to weather any storm.

"I have a love more pure than any you could imagine, Marjolaine," she whispered as the light faded. "And she is here in this room with me. And she will endure. I will endure. Only  _you_  will not."

Marjolaine didn't even cry out, simply staring into Leliana's eyes with ever-deepening confusion as the redhead spoke, before the light fled them completely and she lay dead at Leliana's feet.

Time sped back up, and she was aware of fighting around her. Taking stock of the situation, she found each of her companions squared off with one of Marjolaine's new protégés. They were all sloppy, just as Marjolaine had been. She narrowed her eyes, almost casually flicking her dagger – almost completely devoid of blood, the wound it had inflicted had been so clean – sending it toward Alistair's opponent, catching the troubadour in the side of the neck. The man jerked twice, once with Leliana's dagger, and once with Alistair's sword. The rest were dead within another half minute, and she stood, silent, in the middle of the carnage, breathing deeply and slowly.

Another moment of silence passed before Solona turned, a look of triumph in her eyes. "You are an awe-inspiring creature," she breathed, and Leliana was in her arms almost instantly, sharing a kiss of fierce, fiery passion.

Pulling away, she gasped for breath. "We must be gone," she said, and they were, following Zevran through the door in a sea of movement that blurred together for the bard. Unseen behind them, Marjolaine and her clutch of young, raw, up-an-coming bards lay dead upon the ground, their blood growing cold as it dripped through the floorboards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I did this justice. The idea to make Marjolaine actually less than Leliana was anticipating was inadvertently Raven Sinead's idea. Like, I was reading one of her messages - about the exact opposite, that seeing Marjolaine would overwhelm Leliana when she wasn't expecting it to - and suddenly my brain was like, "Hey. Do the opposite of that. Have Leliana think Marjolaine's going to be awful, but then Leliana is actually better than her." I hope it came across and you like it!
> 
> Also, you'll recognize Isabela's conversation from DAII. I just thought I'd add a little depth there, since I included her and all...


	31. Escape

 

"Well, boy, we did it."

Solona sat with a fire to her back, Max's head in her lap, snoozing. The poor dog had run beside them while they rode to Denerim, and even the day of rest in the warehouse hadn't been enough to completely regain his strength. She could see that he'd lost weight, since he hadn't had a chance to hunt or eat enough. It made her feel guilty – in her joy over being with Leliana, falling in love with her and exploring their bodies with each other, she had neglected the creature who had been devoted to her before Leliana was even in the picture. So she sat here, letting him sleep with his big, burly head in her lap.

She was at watch alone. In the distance she could just see the sky growing lighter, but she wasn't worried, as they had all agreed to take a day of rest here, in this unknown meadow between Denerim and the Brecelian Forest. Isabela had bid them goodbye at the city's edge, and they had fled to their horses and supplies, grabbing the animals and riding hard until they were surely at a safe distance. They had then set up camp, everyone going to bed immediately except for Solona and Max, who had drawn lots and lost.

Leliana lay asleep in their tent, not having spoken since they had fled Marjolaine's house many hours before. She was dreadfully tired, almost falling asleep in the saddle as they neared the end of the final hour of their ride. Solona was worried for her, but had not had a moment alone to talk with her. The bard had been… otherworldly, almost scary. Her confidence, her grace, her ability to stand her ground as her tormentor had claimed they were one and the same. Words aimed maliciously were instead absorbed and thrown back in Marjolaine's face. And then her lover had acted as swiftly as a cat, catching Marjolaine and overpowering her without any help.

Solona had squared off quickly with one of the young people in the room with them, having turned to watch Leliana's back. She was determined to follow Leliana's lead, and it was clear this was a battle she needed to handle on her own. Solona would have loved to cut the bitch's throat herself, but it was clear to her almost immediately that she would have only succeeded against Marjolaine with the help of her magic – close-quarters knife-fights were  _not_  her strong suit, not against a master of the craft like Marjolaine. So she let her lover do what she needed to do, satisfied with the fact that Leliana was  _clearly_  up to the task.

Her own battle had been rather easy. The person she'd fought had been good, but nothing like Leliana. And as Solona had spent the last several months sparring with Leliana almost daily, she was very familiar with the fighting style, knew how to get in even closer than the close quarters fighters who preferred knives and daggers to swords and shields. It was part of why she fought with a dagger as well as her sword – to allow her to fight an array of enemies, skilled in a range of styles.

Marjolaine's words had cut deep with Solona, however. But not because they were true. On the contrary: Solona was astonished that Marjolaine could ever think those things of Leliana. It was clear to the mage that Leliana did those terrible things at Marjolaine's behest. She was good at them because she was suited to quiet subterfuge, not because she reveled in power given her from the Game. It was clear to Solona in that moment, as Marjolaine accused Leliana of being just like herself, that Leliana had such a capacity for love that it had turned her to those terrible things she had done despite her nature. That Marjolaine had taken someone so lovely, so innocent, and twisted Leliana to her own ends had filled Solona with a wrath she couldn't name. She had literally burned, the arcane magic she had learned to harness  _aching_  to be released.

She had settled for driving her sword into the bard-in-training she faced, whirling around in time to see her companions doing the same. Leliana had been standing there, panting, her bloodied knife in Alistair's opponent's neck as he'd fallen to the floor. Seconds later, Zevran's opponent fell, and they stood panting, all of them unharmed.

"You are an awe-inspiring creature," she had breathed, watching the blue eyes of her lover  _smolder_  with a quiet, insistent fire. And then Leliana had been in her arms, kissing her so hard that Solona had been afraid the bard wanted to take her right there. But Zevran had hurried them out, and the flight from the city was a blur as they ran, all thought of stealth abandoned in favor of speed. They must be away from the house of dead bodies before it was discovered.

She scratched under Max's chin, and he grunted faintly in his sleep. She smiled. He was so loyal. He was simply… part of her, like a shadow. She loved him with a different kind of love than any human she'd ever met, even Leliana. Her love for Leliana was all-encompassing. The bard was the light of Solona's life, the source of her burning passion, her strongest emotions. Her love for the dog was simple. It just… was. Very much like she simply had arms, and legs, and a heart that beat in her chest.

She sighed. Maker, she was tired. But she would be able to sleep soon. Sten was always awake with the sunrise, doing his forms, his meditations while in a warrior's stance. She could go to bed then. But for now, she must stay awake and make sure they were not taken unawares.

It was finally starting to get cold in the evening out here on the road, which wasn't helping her sleepiness. Shaking her head, she slapped some wakefulness into her face, smirking at herself as she realized she was behaving much like a horse. Her steed seemed to have gotten all his aggression out, because he had borne her to safety with not an ounce of unwillingness this time. She was finding she actually somewhat liked the animal.

"I'm going crazy, Max." She scratched under his chin again, making him groan in his sleep once more. "I'm beginning to  _like_  the beast! Don't worry, though," she added, whispering conspiratorially. "I still like you much better than him."

Chuckling to herself, she looked off into the distance, wondering how the conversation with Leliana would go once they finally spoke.

* * *

Leliana roused when light shone into the tent. Groaning a little, she shifted, covering her head with the pillow.

Solona's voice sounded, a rough whisper. "So you're awake, then?"

She nodded, curling around herself a little more. She didn't want to face this morning. She didn't know how she felt, other than not sorry for having rid the world of the scourge that was Marjolaine. She still couldn't believe that the woman was so…  _bad_. All the danger that she possessed had clearly been in her ability to enrapture someone, not in her actual physical skill. She was a bard master because she could convince people to follow her, not because of any superior skill at subterfuge. Or had it been that she  _had_  borne the proper skills at some point in her life, but in her teaching role lost her finesse? Or perhaps Leliana's own life as the Chantry sister, meditating and learning further the value of patience, and then, as a fighter of darkspawn, honed her own skill to a razor-sharp edge, an edge which Marjolaine's cushioned life couldn't possibly hope to give her?

Leliana did not know the true answer. Perhaps it was a combination of all those that answered the question most satisfactorily. She couldn't decide, even with all the time she'd had to think while they ran through the city, down the coast, and then in the saddle in their mad-cap dash to safety. All she  _could_  decide on was that she did not wish to speak of it with Solona… and yet she knew she must. She did not want to keep anything from her lover, even if she couldn't quite decide how she felt. But why did she not want to speak to Solona? Was it because she didn't know how she felt? Because the mage had been over-protective? Or was it because her warden had gotten a glimpse into her old world, and Leliana had found that old world  _wanting_?

She was roused from further musings by the tent flap closing, cutting off the glaring light, and the shifting of her lover about the tent. She removed her head from the pillow in time to see Solona removing her shirt in the dimness left to them. Warmth began to pool in her lower belly at the sight, and she cursed her treacherous body for its seemingly insatiable desires. Now was not the time for sex! She should speak with her lover about how she felt! The thought turned the warmth into a molten dread, and she groaned again, curling around herself as she buried her head in the blanket she used as a pillow once more.

"Leli?" She felt the bedding shift, and then Solona was behind her, a hand on her shoulder. "Why do you keep groaning, love?"

A small kiss to her bare shoulder caused her to gasp, a shiver to travel down her spine. Damn her traitorous body! "I am fine, Solona." Another small kiss to her shoulder, causing her body to writhe a little. She powered through, however. "I just didn't like waking up to such bright light, even if it is now gone."

Solona kissed her shoulder again, sliding a hand to her naked hip. "But it is such a beautiful day." The hand traveled down to her stomach, the mage's fingers spreading, feather-light on her skin. "Do you not want to get up and greet it?"

Solona's other arm slid beneath Leliana's neck, the hand wrapping around her to barely caress her breast. Leliana gasped again, curling her fingers into the linen sheet covering her and pulling it close. Solona placed a few more light kisses to her shoulder before traveling up along the bard's neck to her ear.

A low, airy, slightly rough voice sounded in her ear. "Or would you prefer to greet the morning in another way, my love?"

Leliana tried to suppress the shudder, but she simply couldn't. She tried to turn over, to kiss her lover, but the mage's hands tightened, keeping her where she was. "Hold on, Leli. Let me do this for you. I can't fix everything like I want to, but this…  _this_  is something I can do for you." As she spoke, her fingers spread once more, digging into her flesh and warming markedly. Leliana gasped, realizing that Solona's voice had taken on that multi-toned sound that it got when she channeled her arcane energy. Her heart began to race, and she realized that this prospect, of being tamed by the warrior,  _already_  – just by her realization – had her aroused.

"Solona," she breathed, wondering if she should caution her lover away from this. Even as it aroused her, she also found herself doubting the safety or wisdom of using magic in this way. It had first come to the warden in a fit of losing control. It was dangerous… wasn't it? Could she do this without hurting the bard?

"Don't worry, Leliana," that voice that was Solona's, and yet more than, sounded. Her hands began to travel, to tweak a nipple, caress a hip, squeeze her rump, and Leliana found herself quickly not caring if it was unwise. She simply wanted those hands, those lips, that body, to keep pressing against her.

"Okay," she breathed, relaxing her body and letting Solona mold herself to the bard. "I trust you, my love."

"And I will always do everything I can to be worthy of that trust," the mage murmured, her hands turning the bard around and her lips finally,  _finally_  capturing Leliana's in a feral kiss, full of lust and love and everything she could never quite manage to say in words.

Solona's hands slid around her waist, pulling herself atop the already naked bard, replacing the linen sheet with her own body. She was naked from the waist up, and all of her skin burned hotter than usual, her eyes glowing in the dimness of the tent. Leliana noted that the mage had at some point removed the cosmetic on her skin, but she had not had a chance to wash her hair; it was still encrusted with the thick, dried paste they had used to color it. She didn't care, though, running her fingers through Solona's hair as the mage lowered herself, pressing hot kisses to Leliana's throat, pressing her hot skin to Leliana's own.

This.  _This_  was what she needed. She needed Solona: to love her, to  _make_  love with her, to help her express all her meandering feelings physically until they made sense – or until she no longer cared. She needed the image of her mentor replaced with something current, something she cared deeply about. The Blight was too much, and therefore was not enough. The same with the Maker, with the information they'd learned from the Gauntlet, with the clear mission she would need some day to undertake to fix the Chantry and re-educate all those who practiced the Andrastean faith. It was all too much, too big, and therefore not enough to pull her mind from her past, from the reasons for Marjolaine's failure to live up to her reputation.

But Solona. Solona was small in comparison to those things, and yet ran deeper than all of them. Leliana's love for Solona burned like a fire compared to the peace she had found in the Chantry after she escaped Orlais. Helping Solona stop the Blight was the only way she could care about the problem deeply enough, personally enough. Solona making love to her was real, visceral, and it was enough to pull her out of her past, out of the questions of "why" and allow her to simply  _feel_.

Speaking of feeling, she could feel pulses radiating from the tips of the mage's fingers wherever they touched, like ripples in a pond, except upon her skin. She writhed against the mage, gripping her hair and pulling lightly as she almost unconsciously ground her center toward her lover, trying to get more solid contact. But alas, the mage would not allow it.

"Solona, you are teasing me!"

"Yes, my love. I want you here, right here with me. I want you to enjoy this." She wrapped her long arms around Leliana's waist, pulling the bard up onto her lap as she sat up on her knees. Leliana yelped, grabbing tightly to Solona's shoulders as she was pulled upright. As she settled, straddling the mage's lap, she felt her body respond belatedly, releasing a veritable flood between her legs. She  _loved_  it when Solona did things like this. She liked being in a more dominant role, yes, but she had an entire sexual history of enjoying instead a submissive role. She still liked her lover to take charge, especially a lover she so cared for. And having small surprises like this sprung on her  _definitely_  worked to keep her on her toes and out of her head.

Pressing her tattooed face into the bard's neck, Solona murmured, "I want you out of your overthinking head and here with me. Tell me how this feels, my love."

Solona's hand left the small of her back, traveling between them. Deft fingers parted silky hair before sliding between her folds, teasing that sweet epicenter of pleasure before slicking themselves in her sex and probing gently inside of her. Leliana gasped, digging her fingernails into the mage's skin. She felt almost full, and ground herself against her lover's hand to pull her in deeper, seeking more of her warden.

"Oh, Solona," she breathed, trying to be mindful of the thin walls of the tent. "You feel amazing. Your hands are so warm, and I can feel it inside…" She cut herself off, hissing as the arcane warrior curled her fingers, hitting that delicious spot with her pulsing fingers. It felt  _divine_ , like nothing she'd ever felt before. She ground harder still, bringing the mage's face up from her throat to look into those glowing eyes.

It was as if she could glimpse the universe in those eyes. She'd never had a chance to view them so close, as Solona had kept her arcane energy restricted to battle. But now Leliana looked into them, and she felt only warmth, and light, like she had a direct portal into the Fade, to the Maker, to the places where good dreams were born. She could see the goodness that was Solona's very  _soul_ , and in that moment she was so sure of the mage's love for her that she was completely overwhelmed.

Throwing her head back and closing her eyes, she spasmed atop her lover, gasping and biting back a scream, muttering Orlesian obscenities under her breath. She felt the smiling mage kiss her between her beasts, her left hand still supporting her with fingers splayed across her back, holding her up while she climaxed.

After a timeless moment, she looked back to her lover and looked deeply into her eyes once more, rocking against the warrior's hand a few more times as she rode through her aftershocks. As her climax calmed, so did those eyes, and then they were once again the pale slate-grey that Leliana knew so well, grinning along with the rest of her like a fool up into Leliana's face.

"So we approve, then?"

Leliana smacked her shoulder before groaning and slumping into the larger woman's arms. " _Oui, ma chérie. Je t'adore, et j'approuve._ " She clicked her tongue slowly, feeling how dry her mouth had become. "Get me some water, please? You have me completely parched."

Setting her down on her back again, the mage released briefly, returning with a water skin before pressing herself into the bard's side, head upon her breast. "I don't want to rush you. Talking, that is. It took me a bit to figure out that you probably needed some time to sort out your feelings, but I had some time to think, myself, and, well… I understand that you need some time."

Leliana smiled. Solona had  _finally_  figured it out. "Yes, my love, I needed some time. But I think perhaps I have had too much, and what I really needed was to reconnect with  _you_. Which you  _also_  figured out, before I did, even. We should talk."

"Okay," the mage breathed into her neck. "But first…?"

Leliana chuckled. "Yes. I suppose I have quite the debt to work off, don't I?"

* * *

Much later, rain thudded against the canvas of the tent. Solona lay on her back, Leliana sitting beside her, looking down at her. The mage marveled at the look of the woman's blue eyes in the gloom caused by the storm. They had let Max in to keep sleeping just as the rain had begun, and he was now curled on his blanket in the corner, the occasional soft snore escaping him as he slept.

They had made love once more, Leliana stripping the rest of Solona's clothes off and making quick work of her, given her arousal from her own treatment of the bard. Now they were talking. Leliana had just finished her account of the night before.

"So… Marjolaine was not everything you had built her up to be in your head?" Leliana nodded, continuing to play with Solona's stomach absent-mindedly. It tickled sometimes, but the mage loved it, so she never, ever asked her lover to stop. Those pale fingers against her own dark skin, playing with the dark hair that traveled from her navel down to her sex, was a sight she would never tire of. "I suppose that makes sense, in a way."

"How do you mean?"

Solona shifted, sitting up and holding out a hand in offering. Leliana took it, allowing the mage to draw her into her lap. She continued her line of thinking as she wrapped her arms around her lover, holding on loosely while looking into her face. "Well, what I mean is, if she was never actually very good with the physical skills, then she would need to build her reputation some other way. She was clearly attractive, and gifted with words. Put those two together, and you have someone who can snare a lot of people in her net. She clearly taught you well, but I think perhaps her true power and skill was in her ability to ensnare someone of  _your_  ability."

"That was where my own thinking was headed as well," Leliana replied, laying her head softly upon Solona's shoulder. "But it pains me to think that I could be manipulated so, that my judgment could be so blinded." She looked up, making eye contact with Solona. "I know I was young when I met her. But… Is my judgment so clouded now? Am I making some large mistake that I cannot see for my feelings for you?"

Solona knit her brows. "I…" She thought for a moment. This was exactly the warning Wynne had given her, that her love for Leliana could cause a serious lapse in judgment. But then the older mage had found her own love, and seemed only to approve of her relationship to Leliana now. But that did not make her warning any less applicable. There was still the danger that Solona would make the wrong decision somewhere along the line because of her love for Leliana.

And what would happen then? Surely her friends would counsel her? Alistair and Wynne, Zevran. Morrigan and Sten had never remained quiet when she was being rash. Zevran, Alistair, and Wynne had been the ones to stop her from marching off to Denerim on her own to deal with Marjolaine. Leliana was more than willing to tell her when she was being foolish. Leliana would have been unwilling to do so with Marjolaine, as she had probably been punished in some way the times she had spoken up; Solona didn't know the details, but she could make educated guesses. Leliana didn't have the rest of them at that time. It was just herself and Marjolaine, her own judgment being all she could count on.

Solona smiled, knowing she had come upon the answer. "No, you are not."

Leliana turned towards the mage, her face clouded with doubt. "Because, you see my love, you are not alone this time." Solona ducked her head, seeking the bard's blue eyes with her own. "You have friends now, people who you know you can trust. And who you know are honest when it matters. And just as you are not shy about telling me when I am being a fool," she continued, smiling as Leliana blushed at the truth of her statement, "so, too, will I do my best to speak up when I think you need it. It's not just you and your overbearing lover any longer, Leliana. You have friends this time, love. As do I. They keep us honest. They keep our vision clear."

Leliana smiled, shifting to straddle the mage's lap, pulling the mage's face up to her own and kissing her, long and languorous. "Honestly, with that silver tongue,  _you_  could have been a bard," she said as she pulled away.

Solona scoffed. "Me? A  _bard_? Nonsense. Have you heard my singing voice? And my Orlesian is barely understandable. And then, of course, there's my penchant for channeling the Fade's power directly, making my eyes glow and my wrath unparalleled. I would have made an  _atrocious_ bard. I stick out worse than  _Sten_."

Leliana laughed outright. "You are correct, alas! You are  _terrible_  at sneaking. And your face, my love! A blind man could tell how you are feeling based on your features alone!" Solona frowned, causing Leliana to laugh again. "There you go! And you are right about the glowing eyes and your temper, as well!" She sobered a little, her face calming as she gazed into Solona's eyes. "But I would not have you changed for the world." She stroked the mage's cheek, humming a little. Solona smiled. She loved that they could just…  _be_  like this.

But then Leliana's brows knit a little. "You… um, well – you did something different this time. You used magic…?"

Solona smiled. She knew that would come up, she'd been quietly working on how to phrase it for her lover. "I've been thinking on something Wynne said, actually. The day you were attacked. I had started wrestling with Alistair, and had started channeling my magic without realizing it. Wynne remarked that it was both good and bad: good because I need it to come more easily if I'm to utilize it to its fullest potential, but bad because I also needed to be able to control it. And that's something I've been intentionally avoiding."

Leliana's brows knit further. "Avoiding… how?"

"Well, I have this connection to the Fade, I can enter it on a whim should I so choose – I still remember what it feels like, how to do it. But I scared myself with Zevran, and so I haven't consciously used it unnecessarily since. The problem with that is that necessity has only been during battle. And I know how to do so  _many_  things with normal magic, with spells and potions and such. I want to use my magic to make things, to do good, not just to augment my fighting. So I was thinking… well, I started noticing that it practically  _begged_  for me to allow it entry whenever I'm… aroused."

Leliana smirked, and Solona smacked her bottom, shaking her head at the bard's giggle. "I'm trying to say something serious here!"

"I can't help it! You can sit here naked with me, let me tie you up and do unspeakable things to you, but you cannot say the word 'aroused' without growing bashful!"

"Usually I can! I just… it's a serious subject, and I'm looking for words, and… oh, you are the worst!" She exclaimed the last as her lover snorted. " _As I was saying_ , I've noticed the Veil between myself and the Fade gets a bit thin when I'm  _aroused-_ " Leliana chortled once more "- whether it be sexual or anger or mirth – like with Alistair a few days ago. I thought I should start exploring it in different contexts. This seemed like the perfect time to start."

Leliana's smile smoothed into a look of contemplation. "I suppose you are right. It was certainly the first time I've seen you so close-up – and so in control. Your eyes…"

"Yes?"

"It was like gazing into the night sky and into the sun at the same time. I can't even describe it…"

Solona was a little taken-aback. She'd felt more or less normal. It had been fun, even, figuring out how to send pulses through her fingers, warming her skin to make up for the lack of sheets as she held her lover aloft. And it had been  _easy_ , had felt so good to be using her magic to help somebody feel  _good_. And she wasn't fatigued when it had let up. She decided not to channel it while Leliana ministered to her, however, as she really didn't want to lose control at the height of passion. She knew how to keep it closed off, and that was enough for now.

But perhaps things weren't as good as she had thought? "I… I'm sorry if I scared you-"

Leliana's silenced her with a finger, kissing her briefly before saying, "No, my love. It was a good thing. It felt like… like I could see where my good dreams are made. It filled me with warmth – beyond what you yourself were providing." Solona smirked, as did Leliana, and the bard continued. "I'd like to explore it more, if you're amenable. It was… like I could see the essence of  _you_."

"Well… I suppose that doesn't sound too bad, after all."

"Indeed," her lover purred, setting Solona's heart beating hard against her breast at its tone. "Though I don't think I want it every time. I think, perhaps, I want something a little more… raw this time." At the word "raw," Leliana pushed her hips flush against Solona's, grinding her center against the mage as she pushed down on her shoulders. Very quickly, Solona found her wrists caught and her lover's tongue in her mouth, and the gnawing hunger that had been making its presence known was forgotten as Leliana took possession of her warden once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Raven Sinead, who won my silly little contest a while back and in return got to pick any smut she wanted between our ladies. She wanted Solona to use magic during lovemaking.
> 
> I also originally posted this chapter not long after my mother passed away. I won't include the whole explanation again this time around, but I want to thank those who gave me wonderful words of encouragement, and to thank Raven Sinead for the friendship that was sort of sparked by that awful, awful time in my life.


	32. The Brecelian Forest

Wynne led her horse through the underbrush. The forest held no path, and the trees were so overgrown that they could not safely ride without having to dodge branches. The undergrowth was so thick at places that it snagged and caught at her robes, and, not for the first time, she wished she had thought to find some form of clothing more suited to travel. But she simply could not envision herself being comfortable in hose or trousers as Solona and Leliana were, nor could she picture herself finding something as scandalous – yet practical for travel and movement – as Morrigan's slitted skirts. So she didn't complain, though she wanted very badly to do so.

They had ridden half a day to the edge of the forest, making camp within much earlier than normal, as the thick trees threw the forest into gloom much sooner than out on the open road. They had set out at first light, walking until it was time to rest and eat, setting off once more about an hour later. The walking was rhythmic and boring, lulling her into a reverie immediately. They remained quiet, the forest seeming ill-at-ease with their presence. Something was amiss with the Veil in this place, though she could not quite place what it was. But no normal forest behaved in this way, this much she knew for certain. There were no sounds of birds and far too much creaking of branches for a day with no breeze. It was almost as if the very trees were watching them, following their movements through the forest.

She found her mind wandering with the rise and fall of her feet, the rhythmic sound of her horse's feet in the brush, the small sounds they could detect that proved there was, indeed, life in this forest, as different from normal as it seemed to be. She thought of her first day in the Circle, when she had had her first hot meal in days. She had met Irving that day. He had just passed his Harrowing, and she became his first student. He was only about fifteen years her senior, but it had seemed so much at the time. She had admired him greatly, attempting to emulate him when she began teaching students herself.

She shook her head, a vague sadness overcoming her. It had been years ago when she'd had her first student, and that had gone so  _horribly_ wrong. His likely death still plagued her conscience. She had been so  _sure_  that what he needed was a hard line – it had been what she had needed, Irving being stern with her when need-be. But she had realized, upon much meditation, that this was not the same. Aneirin did not respect her the same way she had Irving, and so would not listen when she became stern. She did not have the same relationship with him as Irving had had with her. And the same racial tension was not present between herself and Irving. The result – Aneirin leaving the Circle, becoming apostate – had caused her to reevaluate her methods, and she had approached her next student with much more empathy. She was proud of her students since, but she still regretted what happened with Aneirin.

She knew her mind was drawn there because of where they were. Aneirin had been an elf, a young teenager, and had spoken often of the Dalish, of wishing he'd been able to seek them out before his magic had come to him. She silently hoped that he had made it when he had run, but she did not hold out hope. The templars who sought him out had his phylactery, and even if he had outsmarted them, living in the forest could have killed him any time in the thirty years since. And the Dalish lived in many clans – there was no telling which he might have found. And yet she found herself quietly hoping they would find some sign of his survival, that the templars had not found him and he had flourished with the people he had so longed to find.

"What is it you are thinking about that brings that frown to your face?"

She blinked and looked up, seeing Zevran next to her when he hadn't been before. She smiled. "Oh, just… regrets of the past. As I'm sure you are familiar with."

He chuckled, a self-deprecating smile on his face. "Indeed. What was it you were thinking of,  _mi amor_?"

She sighed. It would take a long time to tell him, but she supposed it was only fair. It would also help pass the time. And perhaps he could make her feel better about it in a way no one else had yet been able to. It was certainly worth trying, so she quietly began to speak, something she had not spoken of in many, many years.

Some time later, she  _did_  feel better. He had quietly listened, letting her simply  _talk_  until she was through. But now she was done, and he was still quiet. It seemed that he was thinking. She could wait, even if she wondered what he had to say about what she had told him. The very experience had taught her patience, so she waited calmly while he collected his thoughts, stilling her own until she knew how he felt.

Finally, he spoke. "Did I ever tell you that my mother was Dalish?"

She blinked. She hadn't been expecting that. "No, I don't believe you ever did."

He nodded. "Yes. She fell in love with an elf in Antiva City, and the rest you know. But when I was seven or so a Dalish clan passed close to the city. I ran away from the whorehouse and found them. It was romantic for a day. Then I missed the sights and smells and people of the city. I lasted merely a week before I left for the city again. Trees are very pretty, but they do not do much else."

Wynne chuckled. "Indeed. There was nothing else to keep you there with them, though?"

He shook his head, a grin on his face. "I was not old enough to appreciate the women and men around me who were strong and healthy and confident, not broken down by living among humans. Besides, the Dalish do not approve of elves who live among humans. They call us 'flat-ear' and speak with disgust in their voices when addressing us. So no, there was nothing else to keep me with them. Once they purchased me, the Crows treated me well in the ways I cared for at the time – I had a full belly of interesting food. And once I came of age, any number of willing bed partners to boast to and share my spare time with.

"Something did happen when I got back to the whorehouse, though. I had a pair of gloves that had belonged to my mother. They were soft, made of the skin from a doe and intricately embroidered. I have no idea if they were a personal gift from someone, or if they'd belonged to her mother or perhaps a sister. I only know that they had stayed with me. But when I left, someone had stolen them, and I never saw them again."

Wynne furrowed her brows. "You must have been devastated."

Zevran shrugged. "For a boy of seven, yes. But I forgot about them quickly, and not five days after returning I was sold to the Crows. My life changed rather dramatically, and I didn't think about them again until I had met Rinna. Before I had convinced myself I did not love her, I was contemplating telling her how profoundly she had touched me. I had told her of the gloves one night, and had secretly longed to still have them, so I could give them to her. Perhaps if I had, things would have turned out differently…" He looked at her, winking. "Of course, if that were true, then we would not be here, and I would not have such a marvelous chance to redeem myself. My dear Wynne."

Her face blushed and she took his offered hand. "I suppose it should bother me when you speak of her, but it does not. Truly, my heart breaks for your past. I only hope I can offer some sliver of comfort."

"You provide me with much more than that, Wynne. I only hope I am doing the same for you."

She smiled and lay her head upon his arm for a moment as they walked. "You do, Zevran. More than I can express, you do." He hadn't addressed what she'd been thinking about, and yet she felt better all the same. Somehow, he simply knew what to say. She smiled to herself. Somehow, she had found what she'd wanted all along.

* * *

"They are so sweet!" Leliana exclaimed in a quiet whisper.

"I still think it's creepy that we're listening in," Alistair whispered back.

She smacked his arm lightly. "You have no sense of fun, Alistair! Or of romance! What if we found this Aneirin while we're out here? Oh! And we could trade for some gloves for her to gift him if they have any to spare!"

Solona snorted. "We cannot. I have a very strong feeling that we would all meet Zevran's blade if he knew we overheard all of that. I honestly don't know why I indulged you and enacted that spell."

"Because you love me and I knowingly exploited that knowledge," Leliana replied, grinning. Truly, that was exactly what had happened.

"Pleased with yourself, are you?" Solona said with a snort of laughter.

" _Oui!_ Very much so, in fact."

"Well, I-" Solona stopped, looking around. She'd obviously heard something. "Wait. What was that?"

Alistair paused to listen, as well. "What was what?"

"That…  _sound_." Her voice was a whisper. "It feels like the feeling I get from darkspawn, but I can hear it rather than feel it."

Alistair furrowed his brows, a look that never failed to make him look absolutely adorable in a completely boyish way to Leliana. They had halted, and now stood listening, but neither he nor Leliana could hear a thing.

Then she did hear something very familiar, the pull of a bowstring, a split-second before an arrow appeared in her lover's face.

"Why are you here,  _shem_?"

Then an arrow was in her own face, as well as every person travelling with them – even Max. Behind each arrow was a pale-skinned elf, dark tattoos adorning each face. Some were male, some were female, though in their well-worn leathers, it was difficult to tell. Then the strongly accented voice that spoke before spoke again, drawing Leliana's attention partly away from the arrow pointing in her face.

"Answer me,  _shem_. Why are you in the Brecelian Forest? And why should we not kill you this instant?"

* * *

Solona frowned. She didn't appreciate the arrow in her face, and she  _especially_  didn't appreciate the arrow in Leliana's face. Closing her eyes briefly, she allowed the energy to flow through her, and with a thought she had every person around her on the ground with a pulse of energy, the eight trained arrows bursting into flame before they could cause any damage. She allowed her voice to become more menacing than normal, really trying to harness the multi-toned quality it took on when she spoke while connected to the Fade and her magic in this way.

"I do not appreciate your threats, elf. I will gladly treat with you in a civilized fashion." She let her energy melt away, noting for later discussion that it came and went very easily in this place. The Veil was thin here. "Do not hurt my friends, and I will not hurt you."

The elf who had spoken got shakily to her feet, eyeing Solona with a mixture of wonder and anger. "Fine,  _shem_. Why are you in our forest? Why do you disturb us?"

She sighed. "I do not know what that word means, but I am a Grey Warden, and I come to find someone who can treat for the Dalish. Is that you?"

The elf squared her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly. "No, it is not. But I can take you to our Keeper. He is the oldest of all the Dalish – and he speaks highly of the wardens. I can take you to him, but I will  _not_  bring all of you to our home."

"I suppose that's fair." Solona eyed the elf. She had blonde hair, pulled back in a long braid, and her face was nearly completely covered in tattoos. "You have no idea if we mean you harm or not. How many may I bring?"

The elf's eyes ran quickly over all of them. "No more than half." Her eyes halted on Zevran, who now stood crouched before Wynne, his elegant sword drawn and his eyes narrowed. "Bring the flat-ear with you. Our First will wish to speak with him." Her eyes then narrowed, taking in Wynne and Morrigan's staves. "And no other mages."

"Very well," Solona nodded, not knowing what a First was but not concerning herself with it yet. She turned, trusting that the elf wouldn't stab her while her back was turned. "Zevran, Leliana, and Alistair." Leliana and Zevran were good with words, and were both sleek and fast like the elves. Alistair was the other warden – there was no way she could go into this without him. She turned again and addressed the elven woman. "I am Solona, Warden-Commander of Ferelden. This is Alistiar of the wardens, and these are our companions, aiding us in defeating the Blight."

The elven woman considered her for a moment before answering. "I am Mithra. Come, I will take you to Zathrian." She turned and began walking, her companions moving in around them. "Your companions will wait at the edge of the forest. Keep your weapons to yourself when you meet him, or he will not hesitate to destroy you. You are powerful, but he is more powerful still."

* * *

The waterfall rushed into the gully over which they stood. Alistair held his sword and shield at the ready, his helm covering his face. His armor held many scratches from werewolf claws, but had so far protected him from any serious injury. Ahead of them, three werewolves ran on all four legs across the other bridge. But they were not attacking. Instead, they halted, standing on two legs like men, their height well over Sten's seven feet.

They had spoken with Zathrian in the camp, but Solona had done most of the talking and negotiating. All Alistair really knew of the details was that the Dalish were plagued by werewolves, and the elves could not defeat them. If Solona and Alistair wanted their help defeating the archdemon, then they must first defeat the werewolves.

"The watch-wolves have spoken truly, brothers and sisters." The lead werewolf spoke. It  _spoke_! They were supposed to be mindless beasts! Also, its voice (he could not outwardly tell if any of them were male or female, or if a cursed beast would even have a sex) was almost indecipherable, like the creature spoke through a wad of chaw and gravel. But still. It spoke, and it had a keen intelligence deep within its eyes, startling Alistair deeply. "The Dalish send a human, of all things, to repay us for our attack. To put us in our place. What  _bitter_  irony."

Solona answered with no hint of hesitation, her voice ringing out with its multiple tones. "And who are you? I was told you were beasts, mindless and speechless."

"You speak to Swiftrunner. I lead my cursed brothers and sisters." The beast breathed deeply, its nostrils flaring.  _Probably smelling us for information…_  "Turn back now, human. Go to the Dalish and tell them that you have failed." It paused again, letting its two brethren growl.  _In agreement, maybe?_  "Tell them we will gladly watch them suffer the same curse we have suffered for  _too_  long. We will  _watch them pay_!"

Solona lowered her sword. Alistair, Leliana, and the others followed suit, though Mithra – who had decided to join them as a representative of her clan – took the longest to do so.

His fellow warden spoke, purely herself, no hint of magic this time. "I would much prefer to talk, to see why Zathrian would say you cannot speak and cannot think."

Swiftrunner bristled with anger, the hackles on its back rising like an angry or protective dog's. "Was it not Zathrian who sent you?" Another growl, low in its throat. "He wishes only our  _destruction_! Never to  _talk_!"

Solona sheathed her sword now. It appeared she fought the creature's rising anger with more and more show of submission.  _Or perhaps she wishes to show she is not threatened, and also non-threatening herself?_  "You talk of Zathrian as if you know him." It was not a question.

Swiftrunner's hackles lowered a little. "We have never met, he and I. He would not survive the experience."

"And why do you hate him so?"

The werewolf bristled once more, snarling, spittle leaving his great maw. "You know nothing, human! Nothing of us and even less of those you serve! You are a fool, and we are done talking." He crouched, mighty claws bared for all to see. "Run from the forest while you can. Run to the Dalish and tell them they are doomed."

Solona held her ground, but Alistair did not know how she managed it. "I do not wish to fight, but neither can I retreat. I must keep on."

Claws retracted, and Swiftrunner settled on all four feet. "I do not wish to fight, either, but we cannot trust you, stranger." He bounded away then, any other words he had for them lost under the roar from the waterfall that was spraying cooling water upon them.

Alistair sheathed his sword. "So…  _that_  was fun. And cryptic as all get-out."

"Indeed," Leliana returned, stowing the arrow she had held back in the quiver upon her back. "What do you think the creature meant? About us not knowing about them, or about the elves?"

"Whatever it meant, it was obviously lying," Mithra cut in, stopping any contemplation they might have shared as a group. Alistair made eye contact with Morrigan – who had joined them in her raven form after flying back to the rest to inform them of what had transpired – and grimaced. She nodded, once, and moved on, shooting an impatient expression toward Mithra.

Their shared look said it all.  _We shouldn't have brought her. If there is something being hidden, she will hinder our uncovering of the truth_.

* * *

The ruins loomed above them. Getting here had taken them nearly a week. A week of playing cat-and-mouse with some terrifyingly vicious – and utterly cryptic – werewolves. They had killed some, though they had not seen Swifrunner again. Morrigan joining them had at least broken the monotony of the forest, though. After speaking with Solona while completely naked, she had returned to those who had been left outside the forest to inform them of what had transpired in the Dalish camp. Now she walked alongside them, sans horse, dressed in extra clothes of Leliana's – much to her chagrin.

What had transpired in the Dalish camp had been a shit-show. Zathrian, their Keeper, had barely given them any information. His First, Lanaya, had been much more obliging, but even she would not part with enough information to make their journey through the haunted forest easy. She was more comfortable with humans than the rest, as she had been born among them before coming to the clan, but she had only known suffering at their hands. She was wary, treating Solona and her companions politely but remaining concise to the point of withholding. In the end, the only extra information provided to the group was that they should avoid being bitten. She was far more interested in speaking with Zevran, who obliged to make things easier on everyone.

Solona didn't know how to handle them all. Every person was hostile. She was honestly having a hard time not taking it personally. They all seemed to follow Zathrian's lead: cold like ice, if barely polite, and it was absolutely  _infuriating_. She tried to talk to them. Leliana even tried getting the storyteller of the clan to share with her, but it was all to no avail. Knowing what she knew, about the  _truth_  of Andraste, didn't seem to help – these people did not worship the Maker, but instead their Creators, and sharing the truth revealed to her in the Gauntlet did little good. Only one seemed interested in listening, and that was the woman who had led them to Zathrian in the first place.

Mithra followed with them now. She was a skilled hunter, felling good food for them within an hour of leaving the Dalish camp. She had opened up on their journey, explaining some about how the Dalish had come to be as they were. They had been twice betrayed by the Chantry and its followers. Humans who stumbled upon them in numbers had a tendency to annihilate them, killing all within their path after raping the adults, and often mutilating the children. And Andraste was only a failed  _shemlen_  to them, someone who had made a promise and failed to keep it. She was at least not reviled among the People, as Mithra often spoke of the elves, but neither was she a martyr to them.

Now, after a week of chasing angry werewolves and contending with the spirits wandering the forest – with the Veil so thin here, it was inevitable – they stood just inside the wall of mist that had repelled them days before. Solona still clutched the branch from the infuriating yet helpful talking oak tree in her hand, her other clutched tightly by Leliana. Before them was an array of werewolves of varying colors and sizes, crumbling ruins rising behind them.

"We're going to have to go in there, aren't we?" Alistair whined in a whisper. He was the most uncomfortable of them all, given his heavy mail and plate armor in the unseasonably humid heat of the wild forest. It should have been getting colder each night, but instead it seemed that the forest was as hot as the hottest, most humid days of summer. They all suffered in their leathers, covered from head to toe, but none like the poor giant of a warden.

"Probably," Solona muttered. Zevran snickered, but no one else said anything, as the one who had named itself as Swiftrunner stepped forward.

"The forest has not been vigilant enough," the beast growled. "Still you come. You are stronger than we could have anticipated. The Dalish chose well. But you do not belong here, outsider. Leave this place!" At the last it stood to its full height, more of its brethren appearing out of the trees and the ruins themselves.

Solona wasn't afraid. The beasts died like any other animal. And with the practice she'd had fighting Sten up-close she really had no problem with them. But there were a lot of them here, and this Swiftrunner  _spoke_ , which made it clear they were more than mindless beasts. But they had attacked the Dalish, purposely infecting them with their curse. Hadn't they? Perhaps she should find out what this Swiftrunner had meant when he had spoken days before, when he mentioned them not knowing the whole story, and Zathrian being treacherous. Mithra wouldn't hear it, but perhaps, going into the lair of the beast, they should know all information, even potentially  _false_  information, and make a decision from there?

"I will not leave, creature," she stated. She could feel her companions preparing themselves. She could feel her power just out of reach, ready to jump to her when she needed it. She left her weapons sheathed, however, releasing Leliana's hand and taking a step away from the protection of her group, looking up into his piercing gaze, taller than even Sten's would have been were he present. "Perhaps we can talk this time? I would know more of this dispute, so that I might settle it."

He hummed low, almost like Sten often did, but with a deep growl to go along with it. "You were sent by the treacherous Dalish to  _kill_ Witherfang! One of them walks among you!" he exclaimed, his gaze falling on Mithra. "I will not stand by and allow that to happen!"

A prickle of irritation made her face flush, but she held herself in check. Expressing her anger would not help her here. These creatures held more than she could ever hope to harness; invoking their wrath would not serve her the way it might a normal, human soldier or bandit. That lesson Zevran had taught her during their sparring sessions – inciting her opponent's anger and making him commit a rash mistake – would do her no good here. Anger was their way. She could never hope to best this beast through it.

Instead, she took a deep breath and silently commanded his gaze back to hers. "I am not the Dalish. I do not wish to harm anyone else. I wish to find out what is happening here and solve this problem so that I may face the true threat: the Blight on this land."

He regarded her for a moment. "I do not believe you." He took a step back, crouching on his haunches again, as the beasts normally did. "I will not risk believing you." His voice was mangled as it came through the spittle he'd worked up in his anger, his gaping maw and giant teeth distorting his already distorted voice, making it sound like gravel called his throat home.

He began to pace in front of his brethren. "You are an intruder in our home. You come to kill, as all your kind do! We have learned this lesson well!" He fell to all four legs, looking like some cross between man and dog with his legs too long to be beast, and yet too muscular and limber to be man. She briefly wondered if he had been man or elf before the form he now bore. "Here, Witherfang protects us. Here, we learn our names and are beloved." He stopped, crouching upon his haunches once more. "We will defend Witherfang and this place with our lives!"

At the end, he howled, a blood-curdling noise that prompted the rest with him to respond. Solona jumped away, reaching for her power. It was so easy to find here, easier than usual. Rather than being behind a curtain that she needed to move aside, it was more like a living, breathing entity that awaited a command to enter her being. The only thing between it and herself was her will.

Feeling it flow through her, she drew her sword, its glowing blade as sharp as it ever had been. Drawing her dagger with her free hand, she released her own primal roar and charged, knowing that her companions would follow close behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Superficial changes to canon here. Namely, I liked the idea of the elves getting knocked on their asses. I also didn't think they would meet you and talk without a struggle like they do in-game. Also, their accents. I decided they should all have Welsh accents like in DAII, even though I really love Tim Russ as Zathrian and Kimberly Brooks as Lanaya (aka the voice of Ashley Williams). So keep that in mind, I guess?


	33. Lair of the Werewolves

Solona charged into the thick of the werewolves, and Leliana had to suppress a sigh. One of these days, she was going to run into something that could not be taken down in such a fashion. But the day had not yet come. Just as Leliana, Zevran, and Mithra all loosed an arrow, a wave of force exploded outward from the center of the snarling beasts, shoving them all off of the standing human figure in the center – Solona. Leliana's breath hitched as she saw her lover standing there, scratches on her armor, torn flesh mending before her eyes.

Her body informed her that the arcane warrior would need to be ravished at the next convenient opportunity.

_Focus, Leliana! When did that go from being frightening to being arousing?!_

Shaking her head to focus, she pulled another arrow and sent it into the chest of a rising werewolf. It howled, falling dead with a gurgle as Zevran sent another into its throat. He had learned that he did very poorly up-close with more than one or two of the beasts, and had decided to stay back with the others while Solona and Alistair engaged them. The male warden stood as protection if one decided to get too close, and got out of Solona's way, allowing her to let loose completely without worrying about hurting one of her companions.

"Nice shot!" she shouted to Zevran, notching another arrow and sending it into the flank of Swiftrunner. He howled and turned, tearing it from his flesh as he sought his tormentor. As his eyes landed on Leliana, Solona struck out, scalding his arm with a blast of boiling water erupting from her palm.

As he howled once more, a white, dog-sized blur sped across their path. As it passed, Solona fell to the ground, her eyes and sword losing their glow immediately. It was all the time the werewolves needed. Swiftrunner was on her in an instant, leaving Leliana to scream for her lover.

Only another sound wailed more loudly than her own. The beast about to maul her lover instead stopped in his tracks, turning to regard the source of the noise. Leliana turned, as well, and found that the white blur had indeed been a white wolf. It regarded Swiftrunner with dark, obsidian eyes. Time stood still for a moment, Leliana poised to act, but fearing that any movement would break the spell. She must protect her warden, for herself and for Ferelden, but she was no match up-close for even one werewolf. She was strong and fast, but she lacked the animal instincts the beasts possessed. Even in her new armor, made in Redcliffe from the scales of the drakes in the temple above Haven, she stood little chance of surviving a werewolf up-close with only her daggers or short sword. So she remained still, hating that she could do nothing, and yet knowing she would be no help if she got herself killed.

Remarkably, the white wolf turned and disappeared, Swiftrunner and the other werewolves retreating into the ruins ahead of them without a sound. Kekuaba didn't waste any time, however, running to Solona as the mage found her feet.

"Of all the stupid, ill-planned,  _moronic_ …" Leliana trailed off, anger replacing the fear she had felt moments before. Unable to help herself, she reached up and slapped the mage, hard. Solona shook her head, her eyes focusing on Leliana's. She opened her mouth, probably to defend herself, but Leliana did not let her.

"There were almost a  _dozen_  of the creatures, Solona! How could you risk your life like that?!"

"I didn't! You didn't complain when I did this earlier-"

"That was because we had planned it! And it was not so many! And as soon as they were on the ground you fled! This was  _not the same_ , Solona!"

"She's  _right_ , Solona," Alistair's voice carried to them. She turned to see him stowing his sword, Zevran, Mithra, and Morrigan arrayed behind him, uncertainty on the first two's faces. Morrigan simply rolled her eyes and stalked over to examine the bodies of the werewolves they had killed.

"So you're ganging up on me, are you?" She was clearly trying to make a joke, but her tone was more than a little hurt. She was not good at hiding her emotions at all.

"You could have been  _bitten_! When the white wolf knocked you down, your power left you! I saw it! You were stunned, on the ground with a werewolf pinning you down. You need to be more  _careful_ , Solona!"

Leliana was literally  _trembling_ with anger. Solona would have stomped off to take care of Marjolaine on her own, to protect Leliana. And while it was now clear that she could have handled Marjolaine just  _fine_ , at the time it was not. Solona had come into her power magnificently, but it had left her reckless. She could not afford to be reckless. She seemed only to be able to be completely reckless, or completely safe, as when she didn't use her power after injuring Zevran. She needed to find a way to do both. This world depended upon her success in this matter, upon her survival. And while Leliana would only admit silently to herself that Solona might not survive  _past_  the archdemon, she needed at least to reach that coming conflict intact and able to fight. And she couldn't do that if she did not learn to be careful as she learned to wield her powers.

Solona stared down into her eyes for a moment. She stood in new armor as well, made from the scales of the dragon that Sten and she had salvaged as Alistair lay recuperating atop the mountain. It had saved her from numerous bites, the once-pristine surface now marred with jagged teeth- and claw-marks. Leliana pointed to them now, grabbing Solona's hand and dragging her fingers none-too-gently across the rough surface. "You must be more careful, Solona. You become rash and unmindful of danger when you channel your magic. You have already said that it is so close in this place. You must be extra careful to make up for it, my love. Do you not see?"

Solona's eyes smoldered for a moment before Leliana saw the briefest flicker of shame. She reached up and cupped the mage's cheek, hoping to temper that. She didn't want Solona feeling ashamed. She just wanted her to be more careful, to be mindful of the consequences of her actions.

"Solona, don't do that. No guilt. Just… be careful with my love, will you? I cannot always look out for her."

Solona smiled a little, reaching out and pulling Leliana into a hug. Leliana was buried against barely-flexible planes of dragon scale armor, but she didn't mind. She was enveloped by familiar scents: tea and honey, sweat, leather, the new, musky scent of the dragon's scales, all with the undercurrent of that earthy and sweet scent that was, simply, Solona. The mag's long, strong arms held her tight for a moment, and she was glad for it, and glad that the warden was not overcome with guilt, but had seen the error of her ways.

Leliana was released a moment later. "Sorry, everyone," Solona murmured, receiving understanding noises in reply. Leliana reached for her bow, held out by Alistair, next to whom it had been abandoned. Securing it strung upon her back, she turned and smiled to see Solona speaking quietly with Alistair, Zevran, and Mithra. Between the three of them, they could get anyone to talk to them.

"Stop staring and come help me, wen-  _Leliana_."

Leliana turned her head to see Morrigan still kneeling over one of the dead werewolves. She ignored the witch's tone, having already decided to not care about her. She did not like the woman, but the witch seemed to dislike  _her_  even more, so she took a quiet kind of guilty pleasure from knowing that her presence caused the witch discomfort, otherwise avoiding her as much as she could. They were stuck travelling together, so she would make the best of the situation.

"Did you find something?"

"No," Morrigan said, standing and smiling acidly. "I simply tire of the way you stare at your  _paramour_. 'Tis sickening, really."

Leliana rolled her eyes before bending to pull an arrow from the flesh of a dead werewolf.  _I really do not like that woman…_

* * *

"I think we should rest here for a while," Zevran murmured to Alistair, catching the man's arm as he turned to follow both Mithra and Solona away from where they had been talking.

Alistair lifted a brow. "Oh?"

Zevran nodded. "Yes. It is only an hour from when we normally camp, and the werewolves will be thoroughly entrenched in those ruins even if we hurried in right now. Plus they know the lay of the land in there. We need rest, a good meal, and a fresh start in the morning." He finished unstringing his own bow, a weapon he rarely used but with which he was still skilled – though not like Leliana or Mithra – and stowed it upon his back.

Alistair looked down at him for a minute. "You know, you are constantly surprising me. I think you're right. If we go in now, they still have the advantage of knowing the layout, but we're tired. And there will be no camping once we're inside."

Zevran smiled. "I'm glad we are agreed. I will go gather wood. We may as well camp right here. I trust you and Solona can rid us of the bodies?"

Alistair nodded, moving off to do just that. Zevran dropped his travel satchel and moved into the trees. They had taken to wearing packs the elves provided, the horses left in the care of the elves in their camp, but it grew heavy when wearing all day, and was cumbersome when he was accustomed to being swift in battle. He left it whenever he could, and had taken up his bow more often than normal because it was much faster than unbuckling everything just so he could use his blades.

It had been a week since he had last seen Wynne, and he ached for her, physically and mentally. He knew that Solona did not pick her to accompany them because Mithra had said no other mages, but still he could not help slightly resenting the fact she had  _her_  lover with her. He had thought about taking care of his own needs upon more than one occasion, but the first time he had tried had been so underwhelming that he didn't bother again. It wasn't just a release that he sought; he longed for the company of the woman he loved. Sex, while highly welcome, was, for the first time in his life, a side note.

So he kept himself busy. Talking with Mithra while they travelled, killing werewolves or game, and keeping himself moving, even when they stopped for the night. He and Leliana took turns cooking, as Alistair and Solona had no skill at it, and Mithra seemed not to know what in all Thedas  _spice_  was – her first meal for them, while hearty, had been  _completely_  bland, something a self-respecting Antivan like himself just could not abide. All the work made it so he was exhausted when it was time to sleep, in a bedroll under the stars, without the woman who had so quickly come to mean so much to him.

"I am like a love-sick  _boy_ ," he murmured to himself, shoving dry kindling into a sack on his hip. He never thought he would get used to spending his days and nights with the same person. So used to it that he longed for her presence now. Not only would she be tactically good to have with them, but she would also have wisdom to share.

He chuckled. She  _always_  had wisdom to share.

He sighed. He didn't honestly care about those things. He just wanted to share with her how he felt about what had occurred so far, and hear her voice, and fall asleep in her arms. It had snuck up on him, how deeply she had sunk into his heart. He missed her, plain and simple.

Sighing again, he finished gathering wood and headed back to the clearing before the ruins to cook another meal and try not to watch Solona and Leliana kiss and cuddle and make his stomach and his groin hurt with how much he missed a certain older mage.

* * *

"Another one?!" Alistair was incredulous. But how could he not be? Here they were, in an oft-collapsed ruined temple in the middle of the forest, and there was a bloody  _dragon_! It wasn't as big as the dragon they had faced atop the mountain above Haven, for which he was grateful – he had not come out on top with that beast. But that didn't mean he was happy to be fighting  _this_  one.

Solona's voice rang out. "Back! Back into the hall!"

"Why?"

"Morrigan, just do as I say and  _get back_!"

"Solona, I swear, if you-"

" _Just do it,_  Leliana!"

With a huff, Leliana turned, joining Mithra, Zevran, and Morrigan in fleeing back into the tunnel they had all emerged from minutes before, allowing Solona and Alistair to cover their flank.

"I take it you have an actual plan?" The male warden lifted his shield as debris came flying their way. "One that doesn't involve running up next to it and trying to knock it out with the power of your mind?"

He heard her scoff. "Please, Alistair. Give me some credit. I have been properly chastised by Leliana." He heard her grunt, and looked over to see her on the ground, a large piece of stone now settled where she had been standing moments before. Getting back to her feet and readjusting her pack on her back, she continued. "If we get it into the tunnel, it won't be able to keep up this atrocious habit of throwing projectiles."

"Fair enough." Actually, it was an incredibly good idea. "It also won't be able to use its wings, either for flight or for buffeting us. Good work. Shall I run for the hall first, or you?"

"You. I'll distract it."

He was sure Leliana would have his hide for leaving Solona alone in that cavernous room with the dragon, but he listened anyway, turning and running as fast as he could for the hall he could see through the eye-slits in his helm. He heard the dragon scream in pain, and turned as soon as he was within the mouth of the tunnel to see one of its feet frozen in a solid block of ice, Solona racing for them, staff in-hand. Her glowing eyes made it clear she was channeling her arcane energy, which was confirmed when she reached them far more quickly than should have been possible.

"On the ground!" Morrigan's voice commanded, and Alistair dropped immediately. Over his head shot a blast of electricity, much like one of Solona's favored spells, and a second later the dragon screeched in pain once more. He looked up to see it writhing for a moment before it broke free of its icy prison and slithered toward them.

"I think you only made it mad!" he yelled to Morrigan, grabbing his sword from the ground and backing away from the mouth of the tunnel. He had to stay up-close, as he was one of their only melee fighters, and as such was one of the few who could survive as bait. And they had to bait the creature into the tunnel for Solona's plan to work.

The dragon entered the tunnel with a shriek, just as Alistair rounded the corner. Just inside the bend, Solona stood perfectly still in wait, glowing sword raised. Behind him, Leliana, Zevran, Mithra, and Morrigan stood at-the-ready, arrows (and presumably a spell) aimed for where the dragon's head would appear. Several seconds later, the beast's head emerged, followed shortly by the rest of its body.

It made for Alistair immediately. He really  _had_  served as bait this time. But it reared back as three long, thick arrows embedded themselves in its eyes. When its feet touched the ground again, Solona struck, driving her glowing, enchanted sword – now dancing with electricity – deep into its neck.

And then it was over. They all stood catching their breath for a moment before Solona finally moved, yanking her sword free. Alistair watched as it lost its glow, as she cleaned the blood from it with an exposed bit of her shirt, and as Leliana went to her, wrapping her arms around the mage's shoulders. It was quite an image, the tall, dark-skinned warrior-mage holding the deceptively small redheaded bard in her arms. She was the picture of the Hero. He experienced a brief pang of envy as he averted his eyes, seeking out his companions.

His gaze fell upon Morrigan. She stood with her back to him, resentfully healing a wound Zevran had sustained while the dragon had been heaving pieces of ruined wall their way. He was momentarily mesmerized by the shape of the witch's hips in the tight-fitting trousers she had borrowed from Leliana (much to her chagrin – and Alistair's amusement). She was a lot more voluptuous than the bard, which was surprising, given that she had been reared in a forest, on wild game while running from templars. He would have expected Morrigan's body to be shaped more like Leliana's, and vice versa.  _Perhaps some people are just shaped a certain way, no matter the life they have led…_

He was jarred from his musing by Mithra, of all people. "You are partial to the dark, acidic mage," she stated bluntly. It was not a question, though she was clearly confused by what was clearly his  _obvious_  interest.  _I need to be more careful… not least because I don't want my face melted off if Morrigan notices…_

He sighed. "I suppose I do." It was the first time he had admitted it to anyone, even himself, at least in so many words. "Someone put it in my head that she might feel similarly, and it made me realize that I  _do_  fancy her. But she makes me so angry sometimes! How is that possible? To admire someone you find so infuriating?"

She just shrugged. "I have not yet had the pleasure of recognizing the one I will marry. But if what I have observed is any indication, then love is a strange beast. Look at your fellow warden. She can fell a dragon, and yet that tiny woman can bring her to her knees with merely a few words and the right tone of voice. The Arcane Warrior was common among the elvhen once. But we lost that along with many other things with the fall of the Dales. To see it in her is astounding. That love can bring such a powerful being to bear, can make her be cautious when her very nature is screaming for her to move forward with reckless abandon? Love is definitely the most powerful force there is, able to overcome even that powerful arcane force –  _and_  your witch's acid personality."

Alistair blinked. He hadn't been expecting that kind of answer. Mithra continued to stare at Morrigan and Zevran right alongside Alistair for another moment before moving away. He watched her approach the dragon and begin to salvage the arrows they could keep from it. He was still watching her, his mouth slightly open, when Morrigan's voice sounded near him.

"Truly, I do not know what to think, Alistair. First the elf in Redcliffe, and now this elf here. One might think you've developed a  _taste_." She sauntered away, and he quietly swore to the Maker.  _She had to catch me staring at Mithra and think I fancy_ _ **her**_ _, didn't she? Damn it all…_

* * *

"Stop, brothers and sisters! Be at ease!"

Solona knit her brows, frustrated.  _Really? Someone couldn't have said that three hours ago?!_

They had been in the ruins for at  _least_  that long since slaying the dragon. They did not search every room, thank the Maker; if they had, they likely would have had to camp  _in_  the ruins themselves. But Solona's growling stomach had made it abundantly clear to her that she should think about stopping to eat soon. She had promised herself she would once they turned this bend to find the hall once again empty – only they found it  _not_  empty.

Before them stood several werewolves. The one in front of all the others had been the one to speak, its gravelly voice much more understandable than Swiftrunner's had been. And now it spoke again.

"We do not wish to see more of our people hurt. I ask you this now, outsider – are you willing to parley?"

Solona scoffed. They were willing to talk  _now_?! Now that her new armor was covered in nicks and scratches, her sword covered multiple times in the blood of this beast's brethren? She took a calming breath, reining in her irritation and exhaustion, and managed a barely civil response. "We're talking now, aren't we? So  _talk_."

She felt Leliana inhale sharply at her tone, but it couldn't be helped now. Luckily, the beast didn't seem to pick up on the subtlety of the tone of her voice – or it didn't care.

"Not with me," it clarified, giving one shake of its head. "I have been sent to you on behalf of the Lady. She believes that you may not be aware of everything you should be." It paused, glaring down at Solona with those bottomless black eyes. "She means you no harm, provided your willingness to parley in peace is an honest one."

 _No subtlety in that implication whatsoever_ , she sighed inwardly. If they caused any problems, they would be attacked without question. And this Lady, whoever she was, would likely be in a den of dozens of the beasts. Defeating all of them with their reduced numbers was unlikely, at least not without sustaining heavy injury. And Wynne was not with them to undo the damage.

Solona's irritation bristled once more, and she asked what she'd held herself back from moments before. "If you're willing to talk now, why wouldn't the others before? I've been asking to talk this entire time!"

Another sharp inhale, this time from both Leliana and Alistair. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. They would just have to forgive her the supreme irritation she felt.

The creature flicked its ear. "Swiftrunner did not think we could trust you. But it is clear to the Lady that if we do not do as you wish and talk, then you will fight your way in and try to take that which Zathrian sent you for without all the information. So she sent me to see if you would still parley."

The arcane warrior frowned up at the beast. Behind it, the others waited with bared teeth and claws. Obviously, this Lady must be powerful and persuasive, if she could convince this many violent werewolves who only wanted to tear her and her companions apart to not do so. She shuddered, to think of facing such a person face-to-face.

But she would do it. The death was starting to grate on her. This was nothing like killing mindless darkspawn. Killing those just helped to silence the strange whisper that accompanied the sharp scrape of a bony finger over her skull. They attacked. The werewolves  _protected_ against her and her companions. This was meaningless; so many lives lost for no other reason than they wouldn't talk, and Solona could not go back. If the only way to get the Dalish's help in stopping the Blight was to kill all the werewolves, then so be it. She would kill them all. Or, at least, that was what she told herself to justify all the dead bodies in her wake. But now that she was given the option to stop? To talk, to use her mind and reason with someone who clearly could  _see_  reason? She jumped on it in a heartbeat, despite her frustration.

Nodding once, she said, "Very well. Take us to this Lady." She sheathed her blade, motioning for the others to follow suit, and confidently stepped in behind this beast who acted as Gatekeeper, all previous thoughts of her hunger forgotten.

* * *

Werewolves flanked them on all sides. There were probably close to fifty of them in this room alone. The smell made Alistair shudder. It was not an entirely unpleasant smell, one of musk and fur and warmth, a hint of tree bark and bountiful earth. But it was all the more shudder-worthy when juxtaposed against the snarling beasts that clearly called this grand hall their den. His fingers itched for his blade, or at least his shield, but he kept his hands at his side, his weapons sheathed. There was no way they could hope to defeat this many. Their best option was talking. Something Solona was at least better at than  _him_.

Up ahead, he saw Swiftrunner, standing amidst ten or so of its companions. "He does strike an  _imposing_  figure, does he not? Surrounded by his brethren as he is."

Alistair glanced over at Morrigan, where the comment had originated. "Yes, he does… Do we know he's male?"

She shrugged, answering quietly. "'Tis as good an assumption as any. I imagine some of these are female, or  _were_ , before they were cursed. But 'twould seem they are all the same in this form."

"Well, I don't know, we could always offer the girls bows. Then at least we'd know how to address them politely." It was a terrible joke, but he had to try – it was how he released tension. To his surprise, however, a smile ghosted across Morrigan's lips. He was stunned. He'd expected some acerbic reply insulting his intelligence, his manhood, or both.

He had no time to think more on it, however, as the group was now at a stop before Swiftrunner. The beast stood to his full height, opened his maw, and roared up to the cavernous ceiling. It might be a little bit ridiculous of a show of intimidation if it didn't work so well. But it did, and Alistair was perfectly comfortable in admitting that he was  _thoroughly_  intimidated. Such a display of raw power  _ought_  to be intimidating.

The beast continued to roar, his muscles coiled with his agitation. But then he began to calm, and just as the rest of Alistair's companions let out a gasp, the warden saw a tendril of…  _something_  coil down the werewolf's shoulder. A second later, a  _lady_  emerged from the werewolf's side. Alistair  _did_  note that she was as naked as the day she was born… except she probably was never born. She had to be some kind of spirit, or perhaps a dryad? Some mystical creature of forest legend. Her skin was somehow pale and creamy, and at the same time green like the forest. Her naked breasts and swelling hips should have aroused him, but instead he stood only in awe of such a creature. Her hair somehow had the look of plants, and her feet and hands ended in the tree roots that wrapped around her legs and arms, rather than toes and fingers.

But her face was the true point of focus for Alistair. Her face held all the emotions he could name, both positive and negative. She was mother, father, and sibling, her very gaze that of a supreme caretaker. She was a tamer of beasts, a righter of wrongs, a God among men – or a Lady amongst beasts.

And then, she  _spoke_. Her voice resonated, multi-toned.  _Just like Solona's.._. "I bid you welcome, mortal. I am the Lady of the Forest."

His eyes flicked to Solona, who stood at the head of their group. He couldn't see her face, so he could only guess at what she might be doing or thinking. But she definitely took a moment to answer. "I… am Solona, of the Grey Wardens."

"Yes, Warrior, I know who you are. I also know  _what_  you are. You are like me – a being of the Fade and the Earth. The difference is, you belong in both. I do not. But that is not how this conversation starts, mortal."

Solona gulped. "My sentiments exactly," Alistair whispered to himself. A second later, he had to hold back a curse, as Morrigan stomped on his foot. He glared over at her as Solona finally answered. Apparently she was done being amused by his comments.

"And, uh, what did you wish to talk about, Lady?"

"No doubt you have questions, mortal. As you might have guessed by this juncture, there are things Zathrian has not told you."

"Such as?" Solona at least appeared to have gotten her footing back. Leliana and Zevran remained silent but close by, no doubt to jump in should Solona fail at this game of words.

The Lady's inky, bottomless eyes hardened, her brows knitting in anger. Given the answer that came, Alistair didn't blame her. But throughout her entire story, her voice remained calm. "It was Zathrian who created the curse that these creatures suffer…"

* * *

_Zathrian?! That lying bastard…_

As the story was revealed, Solona grew more and more livid. By the time the Lady had finished her tale – Zathrian's children's encounter with humans, him summoning the spirit that was to become Witherfang – she was ready to tear something's head off. Witherfang was that man's  _abomination_  of a creation. He had bound a beautiful Fade spirit to this land unnaturally, and only by the grace of who knew what God the creature had remained mostly benevolent, turning to these victims of the curse and helping them find their minds, protecting them in a world of hurt and confusion. By the will of the spirit only, she remained a spirit, and did not let this world corrupt her into the demon she, by all rights, should have become.

Solona hadn't actually been  _told_  that Witherfang and the Lady were one and the same, but she knew. She was familiar with magic, with the Fade and the spirits that resided within. In addition, the Lady had mentioned that she was not of this world, and yet was bound to it. It did not take long for Solona to listen to the Lady's story and piece together what was not being said. The Lady had caused the curse to spread in her anger and confusion, but given time had tamed the nature of the beast she was bound to, and then sought out those she had created in her image, teaching them to do the same for themselves. But still they lingered, not dying except through violent means, wasting away – and yet not – under the half-life of this curse.

In addition, Solona had deduced that this curse, the magic weaved to create it, was the source of the Veil being so thin in this place. This spirit could not live in the body of a wolf without a more direct link to the Fade. And so Zathrian had, through who knew what means, anchored this spirit here while creating a small tear in the Veil, repairing it just enough ( _or perhaps his skill was insufficient to repair it completely?)_  to not allow the spirit back through, but not so well that it could not reside here. It also allowed other, strange things to happen here, like the possessed trees, bears, and other creatures. In addition, it was quite likely the source of Zathrian's unnaturally long life, as well as the reason why Solona's power was so easily accessed in this place.

And now they had been asked to get Zathrian, bring him here so he could see the suffering he had wrought. Solona did not think it was a bad idea. She  _did_  think it was too peaceful, but if she could get him to come and talk, then all those elves might be saved. Mithra's people, who had done nothing but listen to a man driven nearly mad by grief.

Speaking of Mithra, Solona really needed to check on the huntress once they got out of here. All of that information  _couldn't_  have been easy to hear.  _If she believes it…_

They marched from the chamber, the warden's companions at least silently agreeing with her that Zathrian should be brought to bear for his crimes. She felt sorry for him, in truth, but it was tempered dramatically by the suffering he had caused. By the lives he had forced her to take. Clearly he would never feel that his vengeance had been achieved, and for good reason – his children would never be returned to him. But  _this_  was too much.  _This_  was what people were so afraid of – a mage gone rogue, for whatever reason, using his or her power to exact revenge upon those who could not retaliate, who did not share the same gifts, who could not protect themselves.

Clearly, mages  _were_  dangerous. Caging mages was not the answer, of course. But it was examples like this one that were used to justify the practice.

Solona didn't have a chance to speak with Mithra when they got out of the lair, however, as Zathrian was waiting for them.

She scowled as they approached. " _What_  are you doing here?"

"You carved a safe path through the forest. Safe enough for me to follow, anyhow," the Keeper said.

Morrigan actually laughed. "He wishes to see if we have done his work for him!" She turned to address Zathrian directly. "Is that not why you are here, sorcerer?"

"Do  _not_  call me that,  _witch_!" Solona felt Morrigan bristle, even though she could not see her. Apparently it was one thing when Solona, her friend – of a sort – called her that, but when Zathrian did, it hit a nerve. "I am Keeper of this clan, and have done what I must." He turned to Solona. "Did you acquire the heart?"

"No, we did not, Keeper." Mithra stepped forward, in front of Solona. "I… think you should come with us, Keeper. To speak with the leader of these creatures. She… has many words you have not told us."

He ranted then, explaining the Lady's two-sided nature unprompted, almost as if he had been  _waiting_  for someone to wax poetically to about this spirit he had pulled from the Fade. It just made Solona impatient.

"Enough! Zathrian, come with us." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Come with us and see the destruction you have wrought."

"I will come with you," he said after a moment. "And I will force her to Witherfang's form. Then you can do as you promised and kill the creature."

Solona glared at him for a moment, then turned on her heel and marched back the way she had come, completely – and purposefully – failing to mention that the room was lined with fifty-odd werewolves.

* * *

The beasts made a terrible noise as Zathrian led Leliana and the others into the room. He didn't seem fazed at all by the number of werewolves in the room.  _Merde_. When the elf addressed the Lady with barely-suppressed disdain, Swiftrunner almost chewed his head off. But Zathrian continued, insulting her and her wards, insisting that their very nature was that of a mindless beast, not worthy of polite treatment.

 _It is as though he forgets that many of these beasts were elves, his own charges, once_ , Leliana thought as she watched his ranting.

Quite frankly, she had grown tired of it. Her heart broke as she watched the reverence Mithra held for Zathrian turn to disappointment, and then from disappointment to betrayal. The man was broken inside, his grief taking him over and turning him into the very monster he claimed the werewolves were. It was sad, really. But he must be stopped. He was causing too much damage, as sad as his story was.

"They are twisted dogs! Their twisted shape only mirrors their monstrous hearts!"

Swiftrunner growled. "He will not help us, Lady. It is as I warned you; he is not here to talk."

"That is true. I am not here to talk. I am here for Witherfang's heart, and that is all," Zathrian said, contempt clear upon his features.

The werewolf bristled. "He has come to kill you, Lady!"

The Lady turned, seeking out Solona, her contact thus far. "And what of you, Warrior? Do you support Zathrian in this? Even after all that you have heard?"

Solona took a deep breath. Leliana moved to her side, ignoring possible stares as she put her hand upon her lover's shoulder, hoping to be a physical anchor as she was forced into being the mediator in this ancient conflict. The bard could tell from the set to the mage's jaw, her narrowed eyes and stiff shoulders, that the responsibility weighed heavily upon her.

"I do not agree with him. I simply brought him here. I prefer a peaceful solution, if one can be reached-"

Zathrian cut her off. "We both know there can be no peace! Their nature compels it, just as mine does!"

Solona tensed, and Leliana held tight to her, no longer just touching, but actively pulling her back down to earth, in a way.

The Lady took matters into her own hands, walking up and speaking with Zathrian directly. "It does not have to be that way. There is room in your heart for compassion, Zathrian. Surely your retribution is spent?"

The elf narrowed his eyes. His words were for the Lady, only, all others in the room clearly forgotten. "My  _retribution_  is eternal, spirit, as is my pain. This is justice, no more."

The Lady stepped away from him, and it was only then that Leliana realized just how close they had been. "Are you certain your pain is the only reason you will not end this curse?" The Lady turned once she was at Swiftrunner's side, looking at Solona but addressing Zathrian still. "Have you told the mortal how it was created?"

Solona shifted from one foot to the other. "He tore you from the Fade and bound you here, to the mindless vessel of a wolf."

The Lady nodded. "Witherfang and I are bound as one being. But such powerful magic could not be accomplished without Zathrian's own blood." She paused, letting those words sink in with everyone. "His people think they have rediscovered the secret to immortal life, but it is not true. So long as the curse exists, so does he."

The reaction was instantaneous. Leliana reached out with her other hand, literally gripping hold of a now-furious Solona's armor and hauling her back, letting Alistair shout at the Keeper, right alongside a very  _angry_ Mithra. Morrigan, she noted disdainfully before addressing Solona, just watched with keen interest. Likely, she thought Zathrian wise, to wish unnatural immortality at the expense of the weak.

But Leliana had no time to spare on Morrigan. "Solona, do not attack him!"

"But he is a lying bastard! A blood mage no better than Jowan!"  _Ah, so_ _ **that**_ _is why this affects her so_. Solona tried to run at him again, but Leliana held fast, calling on all her considerable, if invisible, strength to keep the tall warrior from breaking free. "Let me go, Leliana! I will make him see!"

"No, Solona, you will not. We must make him see reason,  _with_  reason, don't you see? You did not hear the Lady as you tried to attack. If we kill him, there is no end to the curse. He must choose his death willingly."

Solona blinked, then stopped resisting. "Fuck…"

Leliana nodded, smirking at her lover's phrasing. "Indeed. It will not be easy."

Zathrian had begun to speak again. "For them, for justice, I would do anything!"

Solona stepped forward calmly. Leliana let her, seeing the spark of something in her lover's eyes that made her think Solona had an idea. The mage came up next to Zathrian, lifting her hand to his shoulder. Fast as lightning, he was on the ground, Solona pushing him and pulling her sword. She stood with it now to his throat.

"I have had enough of your eternal 'love' for your children." Her voice rang out, and as it did, it took on the multiple tones that meant she was channeling her arcane energy. A second later, the sword began to glow with the excess power. " _All_  of us in this room have been abandoned by our parents in some way, whether through death or their own incompetence. My parents turned me into the templars.  _Twice._

"One of us was never acknowledged by his father, several mothers died far too young, and one among us must flee or risk being used by an aging abomination – who happens to be her mother. We do not feel sympathy for your fatherly  _love_. Particularly when it takes the form of unending  _suffering_. We all suffer because of our parents. And quite frankly, Ser, you are no better. You are  _worse_. You are worse than my fearful  _sheep_  of a mother and father, too scared of magic to love their daughter. You are worse than the king who tumbled a servant and then left his son to rot in a lower noble's house. You are worse, Zathrian, than the abomination, who created her daughter so that she might have a body to use as a vessel."

Zathrian's eyes flashed, and for a moment his anger overcame his fear of the mage. But then the fear was there in equal measure, and when he spoke, it was half-shout, half-plea. "I am not like these parents you speak of! My love for my children is eternal, and they were  _stolen_  from me! What would you have me do, if not take my vengeance upon those who did this to them? Do not compare me to these lesser men and women, who would never be willing to do what I have done for my children!"

Solona's multi-toned voice softened, grew quieter. "Is it for your children, Zathrian? Or is it for  _you_? Just how far will you go for revenge, Keeper? Would you wish to disappoint your children as our parents have disappointed us? Remove the curse, Zathrian." She pulled her sword away and sheathed it, stepping away from the thoroughly frightened man. "End the curse, and let  _your_  spirit be at ease. You are doing  _nothing_  for theirs." At the end, her voice lost its ethereal tone, and she was herself once more.

She stood between Zathrian and the Lady, breathing calmly, staring down at the elf. Leliana felt her heart swell. Solona's sharp mind had moved past her rage and found the thing that most bothered her about Zathrian's purported love for his children.

The elf, for his part, simply stood upon his knees, a conflict of emotions playing out on his face.

"Lady, we can simply kill him." Swiftrunner shifted from foot to foot.

"No, Swiftrunner, we will not kill him. If there is no room in our hearts for mercy, how may expect there to be room in his?"

"What of you, spirit?" Zathrian stayed upon his knees, gazing at the Lady with a look Leliana could not identify. "You are bound to the curse just as I am. Do you not fear your end?"

"You are my maker, Zathrian." The Lady stepped up to him, a gnarled tree-root-ended hand coming up to barely cup his chin. "You gave me form and consciousness where none existed. I have known pain and love, hope and fear, all the joy that is life. Yet of all things I desire nothing more than an end. I beg you, maker: put an end to me. We beg you: show mercy."

On his knees still, Zathrian stared up at the Lady, tears unshed in his eyes. "You  _shame_  me, spirit. I seek vengeance in my anger, and you simply wish peace for yourself and your wards." He took a breath, pulling himself up to his feet. "I am an old man, alive long past his time. Perhaps it is best that most mortals do not possess the power or knowledge to exact their vengeance in this way." He looked around him, catching Solona's eyes for a moment before continuing. "My children… would not have wanted this. They suffered enough; they would not want others to suffer like this. My anger has blinded me for too long." He looked back to the Lady of the Forest. "I will end your curse, Lady. I pray… I pray that it is enough."

The Lady said nothing. She didn't need to. The emotion in the room was palpable. Leliana found that there were tears in her eyes, though they had not yet fallen. She found her hand being taken by Solona, the mage looking down into her eyes for a moment. "Thank you," she mouthed, squeezing the bard's hand as she smiled. Leliana nodded, at an utter loss for words.  _This was not my doing, my warden, but yours. Wonderful, brilliant_ _ **you**_.

Zathrian had produced a small knife, the kind Solona, Morrigan, and Wynne used to cut herbs. Bringing it to his hand, he cut deep, watching the blood well in the palm as he cupped it. "With this blood, I end the curse. I need only your words of permission, Lady."

She stepped forward, cupping his hand with both of her own. "You have it, Zathrian, my maker."

They were enveloped in a strange light, growing to blinding intensity over several seconds. Then it flashed out of existence, Zathrian's dead body upon the ground, and the Lady nowhere to be seen.

"We're… we're  _human_  again!" Leliana turned to find that, where before fifty werewolves had stood, there were now fifty men and women, of varying age and skin color, some human and some elven. They were wild-looking, their eyes all the same golden color, shining in the low light of this place. And all of them were completely naked. "It's over, and she's gone. And we're ourselves again."

The man who had been Swiftrunner came to them, tears unabashedly on his cheeks as he roughly seized Solona in an embrace. "I can scarcely believe it!"

He withdrew, going to his brethren, an astonished smile on his face as he gazed upon faces he had not seen in many years, and some he had never seen before. "Come," she whispered, getting her companions' attention. "Let us give them some privacy. And see if we can't scrounge up some clothing for them…"


	34. The Warrior In The Ruins

"Thank the Maker he let go when he did. That was closer to a naked man than I ever wanted to be."

"Good," Leliana replied.

Solona smirked. "Good? Haven't you…?"

Leliana narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. "I fail to see how that is relevant. I simply do not like sharing."

Alistair coughed. "Um, perhaps not in front of all of us, yes?"

Solona felt heat rise to her face. "Right. Sorry." She heard Zevran chuckle, and looked over to Leliana, who had a matching, and much more visible, red flush to her cheeks. Apparently they'd _both_ forgotten that they shouldn't talk about such private topics in front of other people.

They had left the room that had been the werewolves' lair after speaking further to the man that had been Swiftrunner. After finding a cache of clothing that had been stowed for many hundreds of years – old belongings from the tribe of humans Zathrian had originally wished to punish – they had said that they would make a life for themselves here in the forest, at least until they were once again accustomed to this form. Any family they might have had were now dead, for most of them, and many of them had been beast for so long that they needed the time to adjust. The only ones who left the group had been elves before, and had only been beast for a few months at most. These returned to the Dalish clan, where Solona and her companions would soon return, after they had eaten, rested, and had a chance to discuss all that had happened.

Zevran spoke up, pulling her attention away from Leliana. "Oh, Solona, we are not all so bad. He had been a werewolf; try a well-bathed and groomed man next time. Or perhaps an elf," he added, eyeing Leliana, "since you seem to like being the bigger half."

Solona glared at him as he made his suggestion, but Morrigan was, surprisingly, the one to answer. "I find men are typically bestial no matter how clean and well-groomed they are. He, dirty as he was, was at least genuine in his gratitude, and was not trying to convince you to his bed."

Zevran chuckled. "It is true. Many times, men only want you to bed them, and that is the only reason they are polite."

"In my experience, men are always willing to believe two things about a woman: one, that she is weak; and two, that she finds him attractive. Playing those parts have proven useful on more than one occasion for me."

"That's horrible," Alistair countered, glaring at her. He held his helm under his arm as they walked, his sweaty hair tousled beyond repair. "How are you any better than they are, in that case?"

Morrigan's smile was wolfish. "I did not say that I was."

That certainly gave Alistair pause. Solona smirked. But when she looked back over to Leliana, she saw the ghost of guilt flash over the redhead's face. Reaching over, she took the former bard's hand, giving it a squeeze to get her attention. Leliana looked up to her and smiled a little sadly. Solona returned it, and they kept on toward the exit. There was no need to say anything. Leliana felt guilt for what she had done in her previous life, and nothing Solona could say would take that away. And Leliana didn't want to _not_ feel guilt. She had learned many lessons from it, and those lessons guided her hands in compassion _now_. Solona wanted to respect that, so she stayed silent, simply kissing the back of her lover's hand and continuing on.

They were done in the forest, in the ruins, and they had Mithra's word that she would convince the others of her clan that the humans were not to blame once they returned to the Dalish camp. The returning elves who had been werewolves would also help their case. Hopefully, when they returned, the new Keeper, Lanaya, would honor the deal, honor the contract to help the Wardens, and they could be gone from this place – this blasted forest and its unseasonable heat and humidity. The strange effects of the Veil being so thin would soften with time, but Solona had a feeling that winter would not _truly_ come to this forest until the next year.

The Warden suddenly froze. She felt… _something_.

"Solona?" Leliana tugged on her hand. "What is it?"

"I sense… I do not know, but it is something that should not be in this world…"

"I feel it, too," Morrigan added, her eyes unfocused as she tilted her head to the side. "Some spirit. Perhaps we missed it before because the Veil was so thin, the energy interfering."

Solona began walking, trusting that she would find whatever it was based on the feeling. "We must find it. Something like this should not be left for some unwitting elf child or one of those we freed to find."

Ten minutes later, she stopped in front of a heavy wooden door. It was overgrown, looked like it might never open again.

"Will you tell us what you feel now?"

She turned to see Leliana glaring at her. _Dammit, she's upset…_

"I feel some… presence. Some spirit is trapped here. It should not be here; perhaps it was trapped when we freed the Lady. We need to investigate, before those men and women who will make these ruins their home stumble upon it."

Leliana remained unconvinced. "And what of our discussion? How is marching off to investigate the presence of a _spirit_ being careful?" Her voice held a remarkable amount of acid. Solona looked between Leliana and Morrigan for a moment, convinced that Morrigan was somehow speaking with Leliana's voice.

Solona sighed. "Sometimes I cannot be as careful as you would like, Leliana. Being a mage is, by its very nature, _dangerous_. They have us go through the Harrowing because to be a mage is to be tempted by dark spirits. Our very nature is to manipulate the Fade, but we can be tricked there, too. The only true protection from this is to be made Tranquil. Otherwise, you learn to navigate it, to be cautious, and to defend yourself should you need it. I cannot _be_ anything else but what I am, Leli."

"Well said." Morrigan stepped up beside her, lifting a brow in Leliana's direction before turning to the door. Solona rolled her eyes and stepped away, leaving Morrigan to her inspection and drawing Leliana away from the others, giving some semblance of privacy.

"Do you understand, Leliana? I am trying to be more careful, to use caution with my powers. But I'm learning that my very nature is to be rash, to jump in and take care of the threat. I would wager that all arcane warriors were similar. I wish I had one available to ask, who could teach me, but it seems my lot in life to discover my way with no guidance."

Leliana sighed, leaning her back against the wall at her side. "I do not understand, Solona. Everything I was taught was caution, shadows, learning as much as I could about a target before taking action, and then acting swiftly and without hesitation. I learn from the shadows, I strike before there is the chance for injury. It goes against everything I've learned to engage the enemy as you do."

Solona knit her brow. "But we cannot learn about the darkspawn, Leliana. They know we are there the moment we know of _their_ presence. The only way to fight them is swiftly and directly. Why do you think we go in search of them when we feel their presence on the road?"

Leliana knit her brows. "The taint is that strong? They can feel you as you feel them?"

Solona nodded. "It is only magical preparation that makes it so we do not become tainted ghouls when we partake of the Joining. Otherwise, we are just as tainted as the darkspawn themselves, except we retain our minds, while the darkspawn follow only the will of the archdemon."

"I didn't realize… wait. What _is_ the Joining? How do you take on the taint?"

Solona sighed. She knew she ought to have told Leliana already, but it was a warden secret. But warden secrets had only made their predicament worse, depriving herself and Alistair of crucial knowledge. "I do not have time to explain right now. I promise, I will tell you. But it must be a secret you keep, Leliana. It is a warden secret – no one would join the wardens willingly if they knew the price."

Leliana stared intently up at her for a moment, before nodding once. "All right. And I am beginning to see what you mean, about only being _so_ cautious. If you cannot be anything but what your nature demands; if your very nature – as a Grey Warden and as a mage, an arcane warrior – draws danger to you; then you must learn to ward the danger off. Facing them directly and aggressivle while being aware of their presence is perhaps best, especially if you cannot hide."

Solona smiled. "I'm glad you were able to deduce what I was unable to explain. That is _exactly_ it: I have no choice. My very existence draws these things to me. I cannot hide, so I must hone my ability to detect them, and face them when I encounter them. And in this case, we need to protect the people living here from this unknown presence."

Leliana sighed. "Very well. I do not like it, but I understand what you mean. And given that there are mages in our number, I agree that we are much better equipped to handle whatever this is than those men and women are." Pushing herself from the wall, she took Solona's hands in hers. "Just promise me that you will be _careful_ while you investigate these things? And try to understand that I cannot comprehend these abilities of yours, not truly. I am stuck with the strength of my arms and the speed in my legs. Your abilities are… unfathomable in comparison with my own all-too-common abilities."

Solona smiled, squeezing Leliana's hands. "You say that as if you don't have abilities I myself do not understand."

Leliana looked genuinely perplexed at this response. "What do you mean?"

"Your ability to talk information out of someone, for one." Solona smirked as she added, "Like when you mesmerized that guard back in Lothering. The way you can talk us out of almost anything, and how you can tell if someone is lying." She paused, chuckled, and shook her head. "Like how you can talk me into or out of almost anything. These are like magical powers that I cannot grasp. These abilities fall right through my fingers, Leliana. Do not sell yourself short, love."

Leliana's lip tilted up in a half-smile, and she ducked her head. "I am simply glad I can put these abilities to good use, instead of what I did to learn them."

Solona smiled, pulling Leliana into a hug. "As am I, Leli. Now. Let's go figure out how to open that door, shall we?"

Leliana nodded, tucking an errant strand of hair that had escaped her now-customary braids back behind her ear. "Yes, let us do so."

The door didn't open at first. Even using weapons to pry it open did not work. Finally, Solona, in her frustration, told them all to stand back and set the door on fire. It burned quickly, a steady blast of fire from her palm doing all the work necessary to keep it aflame.

"Show off," Alistair murmured, rolling his eyes, Mithra and Zevran both chuckling.

"Oh, do _shut up_ ," Morrigan shot at him. "Spare us your idiotic-"

"Enough."

All heads rounded to see Solona, standing in front of the smoldering remains of the door, eyes glowing in an impressive display of her power. "Its call is stronger like this," her multi-toned voice announced, and she turned, heading into the room.

* * *

Leliana watched as Solona reached for the crystal on the altar. She wasn't so sure the mage should be touching it, but with no better options besides leaving it there for the former werewolves to find, she remained quiet. But she did hold her short sword in one hand and a dagger in the other – just in case.

They had come into the room cautiously, only to find it rather small and nondescript. There was a bookcase of ancient yet strangely well-preserved books behind this small altar, and they had immediately fallen upon these in the hopes they would yield some information. They did not, however, as they were written in a language that no one could read. Further examination had revealed little except a small pile of dusty bones – a common enough find in these ruins – so they had turned to the crystal, which Morrigan and Solona both confirmed was the source of the presence in the room.

Channeling her arcane energy, Solona took up the crystal, examining it closely. "It speaks," she announced softly, holding and turning the gemstone close to her face. Its many facets reflected the light in Solona's eyes back upon the mage's face.

Morrigan came close to her, examining the crystal right alongside the arcane warrior. "What does it say?"

"I do not understand. But it wants something. It has been trapped here a very long time."

Morrigan moved to touch it as well, but never got the chance. A light erupted along the crystal's surface, jumping to Solona's hand. Morrigan reached for the light, perhaps out of some instinct to extinguish it, and when her hand made contact with Solona's wrist, the light enveloped her hand as it continued to travel up Solona's arm.

Leliana panicked. "Solona!" She dropped her weapons and lunged for her lover, just as the warden's eyes closed and her body went limp. Morrigan joined her a moment later. "No!" Leliana caught her lover, lowering her to the ground as Alistair did the same for Morrigan.

Alistair yanked off his gauntlets and began examining them both. "What has happened, Alistair?" she asked desperately, physically reining herself in from clawing at either him or Solona.

He pulled back Solona's eyelid to reveal eyes their normal color, peering into them before looking up at Leliana. "They are alive, Leliana. I think… I think they might be in the Fade."

* * *

Solona opened her eyes to find herself in the familiar landscape of the Fade. Nebulous landmasses, at once dwarfing her and leaving her feeling as though she were floating, surrounded her. Looking around, she saw Morrigan a few feet away. In front of them, looking around almost in wonder, was a male elf. He was tall for an elf, perhaps half a head taller than Zevran. His long hair, as well as his eyebrows, was pure white, like Solona's own, and he had the proud bearing of a warrior.

"Hello," Solona called, peering over at him. His head came around, his eyes finding hers immediately. His expression showed surprise, then delight, and he marched over to them with joy upon his face.

"You! You have freed me!"

"I have?"

"He may be a demon, Solona. Be wary," Morrigan warned, eyes narrowed in the man's direction.

He shook his head. "I am no demon. I was an elf, once. A warrior, and a mage, just like you." His eyes flicked to Solona at the last. "I have been trapped in that crystal vessel for a _very_ long time."

Solona knit her brows. "You… you are an arcane warrior?" He nodded, smiling. "I… I have so many questions."

His smile broadening, he gestured to a chair, which had not been there a moment before. "Make yourself comfortable, and I shall explain what I can. It is the least I can do for the people who freed me from my prison."

Taking a seat, she examined him. "How… how did I free you? And why are we in the Fade?"

"My body is dead, so the Fade is the only other place I can go. As to _how_ , well…" He steepled his hands, examining her from his own seat, across a fire that existed solely for the comfort it provided. "You were harnessing your power at the time. I used your connection to the Fade and hitched a ride, so to speak, pushing you in and following in your wake. I apologize for taking you here without your prior knowledge, but you could not understand what I was saying, so I took the opportunity to free myself when I saw it."

"And _why_ were you trapped in the first place?" Morrigan shot at him, eyeing him, everything about her showing her distrust.

He sighed. "I… encountered a trap, meant for a demon. I do not know why it was there or who put it there, but when I touched the crystal while harnessing my own power, the snare was activated. I was trapped within it, my body left to rot in that small room."

"Those bones were from you," Solona breathed, remembering them, and remembering how she didn't find them remarkable at the time. Snapping her eyes to his, she sat forward. "Why were you here? Why were you in the ruins? How long ago were you trapped?"

He chuckled, holding up his hands. "All will be revealed, do not worry. Have I satisfied your friend that I am not a demon?"

Morrigan frowned. "I do not think you are a demon, but I do not trust that you are telling the truth about your story, either."

"Well," he said, standing up and spreading his arms. "Perhaps I can show you my story. Might that convince you?"

Without waiting for an answer, he was upon them, one hand to each of their foreheads. Images immediately flashed before Solona's eyes, so fast she could not process them.

_An elven boy experiences magic for the first time. He becomes so angry, he erupts in flame, burning his clothing and hair clean away. When it starts to grow back, it is white as snow._

_His snow-white hair has caused a stir, and it is not long before others like him come. The white-haired men and women, bearing staves and swords, speak with his parents, and the next day he is taken to a place to start his training. These men and women, human and elvhen, are mages and warriors both._

_He loves the Lady with all his heart. He is a member of the elite fighters, the arcane warriors, that stand at the backbone of her army. She changed his view of the Maker, making a believer out of him. She tended to his grief personally when he learned of his parents' death at the hand of the Tevinter Magisters. He will fight for her, with her, until his dying breath. And it will take quite a lot to kill him._

_He grieves with the rest of them, standing at attention as they intern Andraste's Ashes in the lyrium cave stop the mountain. He leaves, along with many of his brethren, to continue the mission of finding more of his kind, to recruit, to train. But as Andraste's message is spread, so, too, is the hatred of magic, and they are accepted and welcomes less and less. His companion, a mage but not a warrior, is killed, and he is left alone to continue his mission._

_He searches for elves in the forest, knowing that after the fall of Andraste many fled in family groups. They took refuge in forests that humans have no love for, like this one. He comes across a temple made for their Creators, and hopes to bring a nearby, distrustful clan knowledge of their Creators, so he can gain their trust. So many things have been lost since Andraste's death decades before. If he can at least further his Order, send some new arcane warriors to study in the village they named Haven, then he will have done his duty._

_The enchanted gem does not seem right, but the only way to study it is to touch it. Summoning his arcane energies to him, he plucks it up. Understanding comes to him too late, and he is trapped, aware of his body dying over the next several days in the room with him. No one knows where he is. No one he loves is left alive. Eternity never looked so long before now._

Time without meaning passed, images and colors blending before her mind's eye, and then his hands were gone and he was standing before them again, a smile upon his face.

"There. Now you have seen my life. You should go back, before your body withers away without you. No doubt your lover is worried about you, Warden." Snapping his fingers, the light left Solona's eyes, and she spiraled into oblivion.

* * *

Leliana looked down the shaft of her arrow. Taking a shallow breath in, she released on the exhale, standing stock-still as the arrow made its mark.

"I have never met a _shem_ who could hunt as well as one of the People."

Leliana quirked her lips and Mithra approached the deer she had just felled. While she knew the term was initially thrown at them as an insult, it had changed. And in this place, the bard felt it was really only right that she be called out for being different. Elves in human cities were certainly treated worse there than she and her companions were here. The meaning had changed, and it was a joke and a tease more than anything. Especially now, when her skills were being praised. She felt proud, to be compared to one of the Dalish hunters in skill, and to not be found wanting.

"You have never met a champion of the Orlesian tournaments," she answered, unstringing her bow and stowing it upon her back.

"I have also never met many _shem_ ," the elf responded, kneeling over the downed buck. "Were you one of these winners?"

"Alas, no. I won many ribbons, but never the highest of honors."

Mithra handed her the arrow that had felled the buck, still mostly undamaged. "Perhaps you never won at a contest, but I would wager that these winners never had to fell their own game. Targets do not move, and do not require sitting in the cold all morning, waiting patiently and silently."

Leliana nodded. "It is true. They were all the sons and daughters of nobility. Hunting would have been for sport. Never did they have to survive off their skill."

" _That_ is the only skill we value among the People. And you have it. Whether you won at a silly _shem_ contest matters not to us, Leliana."

Smiling, she knelt to gut the buck, a task easier to do here, as the entrails added much weight, and the smell of blood would already be in this place. The bard was pleased, but did not wish to dwell. The trust and friendship of this elf meant a great deal to her, but it was fragile, delicate, and she didn't want to risk breaking it by analyzing the compliment too much. She would take it at face-value, and put her bardic training to rest. Mithra meant only that she was a good archer, nothing more or less, insinuating nothing with her words.

Three hours later, they approached the ruins, the buck tied to a branch suspended between them. "Do you think they will be awake when we return?"

Leliana sighed. "They were not yesterday, nor the day before. I do not see why that will have changed today."

Mithra was quiet for a moment before responding. "You are angry with the warden, yes?"

Leliana chuckled darkly. "How could you tell?"

She could almost see the furrow of the elf's brows. "I believe that was an attempt at humor? Why are you so upset with her?"

"Sorry. Yes, I was being sarcastic. I forget that your people do not employ it overmuch. I am upset because she promised to be careful, and then some spirit pulled her into the Fade. Again. The last time this happened, it was a demon in possession of a boy. She badly injured Zevran due to her lack of caution, and she was thrown by a _dragon_ a little over a month ago." She took a breath to calm herself, focusing on maintaining the same pace as Mithra out in front of her. "She promised she would be careful, and then she picked up that gemstone and was whisked away from me again, not _minutes_ later. I am angry that she broke her promise, and so soon after making it."

A moment later they came to a halt, Sten taking the buck from them with a grunt, seeming to exert no effort at all with the large prey. The day after Solona and Morrigan had fallen, Mithra had decided to make for the Dalish camp to retrieve their new Keeper. Lanaya needed to be informed of what had happened, as did the rest of the clan. She also went so she could fetch Wynne, Sten, and Max, who, as it turned out, had been led to the Dalish camp after a week of no word by their escorts. Lanaya, Wynne, Sten, Max, and a number of elves were now in the ruins, forging relationships with the former werewolves and standing guard over Solona and Morrigan's unconscious bodies. It had been a week, and still they had not awoken.

"And more than that," Leliana continued, venturing into the ruins with Mithra, "I am worried. This is the longest she has been like this. The only reason she still lives is because we are with her to keep her from dying of thirst. What if she had been alone? I am trying to understand that to be a mage is to take risks, but what if we were not here? She takes these risks because she must, and she must do it whether she has trusted companions or not. What happens if we are not there? If _I_ am not there?"

They walked for a few minutes in silence, delving deeper into the ruins, heading for the room in which the mages had lost consciousness. They had been repositioned on bedrolls, making them as comfortable as possible. Alistair, Leliana noted with momentary amusement, had taken the task upon himself to care for Morrigan. He would have cared for Solona as well, but Leliana refused, making the mage drink and changing her bedding when the unconscious mage soiled her bedclothes. She was honestly surprised that Alistair would do such a thing without blanching, but she did not ask him about it, and he offered no explanations, so she was left wondering why he would do such dirty work for someone who, from all appearances, he seemed to hate.

Finally, Mithra broke their silence. "You cannot always be there for her, Leliana. She can make sure to be with trusted people at most times, but it cannot always be you."

Leliana sighed. "And there is the real problem, isn't it? Why can I not trust her, or trust others to be good to her?"

"Perhaps it is the history of betrayal you shared with me last night? Trust of others, _true_ trust, does not come easily, especially after the trials you have endured. Perhaps, instead of trusting others yourself, you need to trust the warden, trust that she can judge for herself who she can and cannot depend upon."

"But she does not know deceit," Leliana countered, her brow furrowed in worry.

Mithra shrugged. "Then teach her to detect it."

It was such a basic concept, and yet Leliana had not thought of it. She saw her lover sometimes as a bumbling fool or small child when it came to interacting with others, but truly she was not. She was smart, smarter than Leliana in many ways, smarter than all of them. She simply wore her heart on her sleeve. She could be taught to keep a tighter hold of her heart without letting go of the things that were essential to herself – her openness, honesty, and willingness to believe the best in people. She was not overly naïve about people, but had given Alistair, a former templar, the benefit of the doubt, and now they were best friends, each trusting the other with their lives on a daily basis. A bumbling fool did not forge those kinds of bonds. A bumbling fool ended up dead for trusting the wrong people.

Leliana was spared having to make a response when she heard Max in the distance. A few moments later he came bounding around a corner, tongue flopping happily. He barked several times when he saw her, put on a burst of speed, and nearly knocked her over. She moved out of the way just in time to avoid him hitting her, but he just veered, barking and running around her in circles.

"Calm down, boy," she laughed. It was obvious he was happy, but she didn't know why. The only thing that would make him run for _her_ with this much joy was… She froze. "Is she awake, Max? Is Solona awake?"

He barked again and bounded off in the direction from which he had emerged. Exchanging a look of both joy and worry with Mithra, she hurried after him, Mithra hot on her tail.

* * *

Solona ate ravenously. She had already eaten, and kept down, a small bowl of stew, so Wynne was letting her eat as she wished – which meant she was now on her third full bowl, and finally no longer feeling famished. She sat in her smallclothes only, the men having been banished from the room when she and Morrigan awoke. Morrigan had turned herself into a wolf and gone on the hunt, probably wanting some time alone after their encounter together in the Fade. Solona had stayed, speaking with Wynne and sending Max to fetch Leliana as soon as she returned from her hunt with Mithra.

As she finished her food, she heard the dog barking. Smiling, she abandoned the bowl, as the only thing more interesting than food would be running through the doorway in a moment. Max came first, quite literally bowling her weakened frame over onto the ground, he was so happy. She laughed, taking his big, burly head in her hands and pulling his face this way and that. It delighted her that he viewed Leliana as an extension of her, as part of their pack, and she did everything in her power to encourage it. It was rare for a mabari to imprint upon a second master – it was even rarer for the breed to imprint upon two people at once.

"Right where I left you, I see." That voice. That beautiful, familiar voice, touched with a hint of amusement. She shoved Max off of her and sprung to her feet, feeling winded already from her exchange with the dog. She had lost weight while unconscious for the week – an _entire_ week! – and felt weak still, even though she'd had some time to digest her first bit of food. But her companions had kept her alive, and she had learned a great deal, and all in all, it was worth it for the knowledge alone.

She was not sure that Leliana would see it that way, however.

Looking up, she saw her lover at the threshold to the room. She could see a brief war of conflicting emotions on the small woman's face, but then Leliana was stepping into the room, concern the only thing written upon her features.

"You… have lost weight," she managed, coming to a stop before Solone and looking her up and down. The warden smiled, reaching for her lover. She knew her undressed state showed off her leanness all too well, but she chafed for the chance to wash, and did not want to soil perfectly good, clean clothing with her filthy state. Someone had washed her and changed her bedclothes as she lay unconscious, but she still had not bathed since before they left the Dalish camp more than two weeks before. She itched and chafed, and could not wait to take care of the problem.

"Yes, I have. But some very important people made sure I am alive and healthy, if a little weak," she answered, reaching for Leliana's hands. The bard was in her arms in a moment, and she could tell that, while Leliana was not happy at what had happened, neither was she tremendously angry. Smiling, Solona buried her nose in the bard's free-swinging hair, inhaling deeply of her familiar scent, letting it wash over her: peppermint, leather, a slight sheen of sweat from her exertions while hunting, and the nebulous undercurrent that tied it all together to make it _Leliana_ , and not some other who used peppermint oil to mask the more unpleasant odors of exertion between baths.

"I'll go see how Alistair and Zevran fare since we ejected them, shall I?"

Letting go of her lover, she smiled at Wynne. "Actually, Wynne, I am itching to bathe. And I'd like to speak with Leliana privately. Is there somewhere nearby we might go to take care of both needs?"

* * *

"Maker, that's cold!"

Leliana laughed. "Autumn is here, and winter is coming, Solona! It has gotten colder by the day while you were… asleep."

Solona dunked herself under the water, coming back up spluttering. She began to soap herself without preamble while Leliana watched from a stump by the stream's shore.

Leliana didn't blame the mage for wanting to bathe; she hadn't bathed in more than two weeks, and she stank, and was probably also uncomfortable in the old sweat and grime accumulated on her skin. It was a little unsettling to see Solona naked and so… well, skinny. She was still muscular, but it was not as defined, and the few fat reserves she'd had – her breasts, hips, rear, and lower belly – were nearly gone, leaving her looking gaunt in comparison. But given how much she said she'd eaten, Leliana knew the mage's appetite was as alive as ever, and she would be back to her normal weight soon.

Solona finished rinsing and splashed over to Leliana on the shore. Leliana smiled, standing and retrieving the soft blanket they used as a towel when they needed one, most times air-drying in the late-afternoon sun instead. That would be happening less and less with the shift in the weather. The mage wrapped herself in it quickly, standing shivering before the bard, the hint of a smile on her face.

Leliana was suspicious. "What?"

Solona grinned fully before opening her arms and wrapping Leliana in the blanket, as well. She let out a yelp, but immediately melted into the naked mage, reveling in the feel of bare skin against her face. Oh, but she had missed this!

"Honestly, I expected you to squeal and try to get away. I'm still all wet."

Leliana smiled, wrapping her arms around Solona's waist. "I thought so, too. But then your skin felt so good."

"Mmmm," Solona hummed, pulling Leliana closer and leaning over to bury her face in Leliana's neck. "I feel like I've been gone for weeks."

"Close," Leliana murmured, turning her head and kissing Solona softly. "Just one week. But I missed you. And I did not know when you would be back."

With that one sentence, Leliana changed the playful mood. She regretted it instantly, but what was done was done. Solona released her, brow furrowed as she took a step away and went to sit on the stump Leliana had vacated.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking away. "I know that we had just had a conversation about being cautious and taking risks. And then I was pushed into the Fade by the trapped spirit of an arcane warrior, and-"

Leliana didn't let her go on. "What do you mean, 'the spirit of an arcane warrior'?"

Solona looked back toward her. "The spirit. It was an arcane warrior, trapped since Andraste's time. He was an elf." Her eyes got a far-away look. "He showed me so much."

Leliana walked slowly up to her. She had gotten over her anger, the conversation with Mithra allowing her to understand that she was just worried, and not actually angry with Solona. It wasn't the mage's fault. Kneeling before her lover, she placed one hand on her knee and the other in Solona's hand, ignoring for the moment how the thin blanket clung to the warden's wet, naked skin. "Tell me what he showed you, Solona? Tell me what you learned?"

Solona tilted her head to the side. "Well, for starters, my hair. All arcane warriors have hair like mine: pure white. We are marked at a young age, when magic first comes to us. If I had lived in Andraste's time, or if her efforts had gone differently, then this would have been recognized and I would have been trained to harness the arcane energy from an early age, instead of having to learn about it in spurts by trial and error as we travel."

Leliana blinked. "That's… _amazing_!"

Solona's face split into a grin, slowly, over several seconds. "There's more. Would you care to hear?" Leliana nodded. "The arcane warrior is both a being of the Fade and a being of this world."

"Like what the Lady said," Leliana whispered, watching as Solona nodded, her eyes wide with excitement.

"Precisely! We draw our power from the Fade, and it is only limited by our body's capacity to hold it. When we draw on that power, we actually exist partially in the Fade and partially in this world. The only other way to access the Fade like this is through a heap of lyrium or blood magic. I can do it at will, Leliana!"

Leliana was in awe. They'd known Solona could access the Fade at will, though she had not done so fully to the point of unconsciousness since the fight with the demon at Redcliffe. But to know that the Fade was as natural to Solona as… _breathing_ … "How is it that this power comes to you? After so many years, it resurfaces in _you_?"

"I think others have had it, too. But _I_ have been allowed to live free of the Circle. I have been able to explore without templar supervision, on my own, with nothing but encouragement. Most mages live quiet lives of study in the Circle, or are made Tranquil. Power like this is easily misidentified as blood magic."

"But… your hair?"

Solona shrugged. "Who can say? Others may have had white hair. If the individual did nothing noteworthy, then he or she would hardly be written into the books I've read."

Leliana sat fully now, leaning back on her hands. "So Andraste knew all of this? Given what we saw in the Gauntlet, she had to have something to say about this ability to bridge the two realms."

Solona nodded, moving to sit on the ground in front of Leliana. "She did. According to this spirit, she saw it as the Maker's gift to a few of His creations. The Circle was for the training of mages of all types, including the few arcane warriors throughout the land. It was actually more prevalent with the elves, but Dalish mages are taught to be Keepers – I'm sure some of them are marked like I am – and the elves amongst humans just go to the Circle. But that's why this warrior had gone in search of the elves that had scattered; he was looking for recruits, doing what he could to make Andraste's vision of the Circle and the Chantry a reality." Solona paused, tilting her head in thought. "I'm glad he never saw what they turned into."

"How did he get trapped there?"

"It was a trick to capture a spirit. He didn't know why it was there, or who had set the trap. But he tripped it, and no one ever came to free him." She sat forward, reaching for Leliana's hand. The redhead gave it, and quickly found herself in the familiar position of straddling the mage's lap. "He also said something else."

"What?"

"The dwarves. He had the information about his Order, but the dwarves have their Shaperate of Memories. They used to outfit the Order of Arcane Warriors, even before they had joined Andraste's army. They first started enchanting blades and armor so the arcane warriors could channel more of their power. They worked closely with them. The dwarves will have stories about the Order, those meditation and training techniques the Guardian mentioned. And they'll have that information about the Grey Wardens, too, Leliana! All our questions might be answered."

Seeing Solona so excited was exhilarating. "Well," she said. "What are we waiting for?"

Solona's eyes flashed. "I feel like I have not seen you in weeks, Leliana. There is something I would very much like to do before we return to the others."

Leliana narrowed her eyes, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. "Oh? And what is that, _mon amour_?"

She yelped a second time when Solona flipped their positions, and she spent the rest of the afternoon naked on that blanket, the two of them filling the clearing with other, more interesting noises.


	35. The Road To Orzammar

Zathrian's funeral was a mixture of mourning and celebration. The clan was desolate with their Keeper's death, as he had led them and protected them for many generations. But once they understood all that had transpired, they seemed to be pleased that he was finally at peace after the loss of his children. In addition, they celebrated the safe return of those who had been cursed and survived their transformation. Parents and children, husbands and wives, young lovers, were all reunited, and those who were not mourned for their lost loved ones even as they celebrated the safe return of those who were returned.

Alistair and his companions were welcomed into the festivities with open arms for what they had done. They had celebrated with the elves, dancing and drinking, singing and eating. Leliana spent a good deal of time playing what she could with the musicians, by the end playing her lute to the tunes and in the style of the Dalish. Alistair and Solona got drunk together finally, something they'd talked about doing since the Circle, and Zevran and Wynne spent the evening laughing and smiling, glued to each other's side.

They spent a week with the elves, getting Solona and Morrigan back up to a more normal weight and strength, and preparing elven messengers to go in search of other clans; they needed to spread the word that war might come as early as the first spring thaw. Alistair's companions spent that time resting and further filling in Wynne and Sten on what had happened within the forest. Sten in particular had a difficult time grasping why Zathrian would enact vengeance in the way that he did, as the giant qunari could logically see that those who had perpetrated the crime were likely dead, and spreading the curse to innocents was not right and would not appease Zathrian's rage. He had muttered some choice phrases against magic users then, confusing Alistair tremendously, as the horned man seemed perfectly loyal to Solona.

Solona and Leliana disappeared often. Alistair chose not to think about what they might be doing for several-hour long stretches alone out in the woods, but he was willing to bet it wasn't hunting, especially since they always took a horse packed with an afternoon meal and a bedroll without ever returning with game. Max accompanied them as well, but that was not unusual; he _was_ a mabari, and they _did_ imprint on their masters, escorting them everywhere they went. Alistair himself did a lot of wandering, wearing only his sword, shield, tunic, and trousers, his armor abandoned at camp. It was safe enough around, what with the increased elven activity and patrols, and it was a risk he was willing to take this close to the Dalish camp in order to be rid of his armor's weight and heat. Especially given that he was usually accompanied by Morrigan, of all people.

It had started the day she regained consciousness. He had joined the elven patrols, as he was a man who really needed to be doing something so he didn't feel completely useless. That night, he went out with Max at his side, like every night that week, walking quietly and steadily toward the stream. Halfway there, he stumbled upon something he had not expected: Morrigan, naked and unconscious on the ground. Averting his eyes, he had immediately covered her in his cloak, which he wore against the chill that was starting to creep in at night, and roused her. She had awoken immediately, confused as to where she was. As she drank from his water skin, however, she had remembered.

She had turned herself into a wolf and gone hunting to replenish her strength and to get away from all those people. But she had been unsuccessful, and far weaker than she had initially thought, and when she lost consciousness, her form had reverted to its natural one.

_He hands her the small amount of provisions he has with him even as he scolds her. "Why didn't you just eat in the camp? Why did you have to run out immediately? We were there to_ _**help** _ _you." He can't keep his voice from being stern. He is upset._

_Her brow knits and she pulls away from him, drawing the cloak further around her before beginning to eat the jerked deer meat. "I do not see why-"_

_Alistair interrupts. "Stop playing the strong one who needs no one's help. If I hadn't poured water down your throat, you would be dead. If I hadn't changed your bedclothes and sheets, you would have been a filthy mess. People_ _**need** _ _help sometimes."_

_"I did not_ _**ask** _ _you to do these things."_

_"You didn't have to, Morrigan. I was happy to do it. But a little gratitude might be nice once in a while." He pauses, considering her for a moment. "Gratitude doesn't make you weak, you know."_

_She chews and considers him for a long moment before swallowing. Looking away, she finally - and begrudgingly - answers him. "Very well. I…_ _**appreciate** _ _that I am not dead."_

It hadn't been much by way of thanks, but it _had_ been a turning point in her actions. Suddenly, the mage was at Alistair's side at most times of the day. During meals, she sat closest to him. She accompanied him on his patrols after that, too. She began laughing at his bad jokes, and even making a few of her own – icy, scathing, but still funny, and spoken for his ears alone. He didn't understand this new attention, but he wasn't complaining. After admitting to Mithra that he fancied her, he found himself looking for reasons to be near the mage as well, so it suited him just fine. They still bickered, but it had somehow changed, was less acidic and more like friendly banter. Well, maybe not friendly banter, but certainly friendlier than it had been.

She had even been obliging when he had drunkenly taken her up in a dance the night of the funeral. He had been dancing with Solona, the two of them drunkenly swinging each other around in a bad imitation of the formal partner dance she and Leliana had taught him weeks before. As one song ended and another began, he spotted Morrigan barely in the fire's light, clutching a mug to her chest and viewing those around her with a small frown of disdain. Smiling, he had gone to her, set the mug aside, and taken her into his arms, dragging her – reluctant, calling him names, threatening his manhood – around the bonfire to the music.

But then something amazing had happened: she began to dance with him, following his steps and loping to the rhythm of the music. When the song ended, he had lifted her in a bear hug, and Morrigan had been Alistair's shadow for the rest of the night. He had even fallen asleep next to her in the grass before the fire; when he awoke, she had not been there, but the cloak she had been wearing _had_ been tucked around his sleeping frame.

Now, they all rode away from their Dalish hosts. The runners had been sent at sunrise, and they had to be on their way. They had one treaty left before they could go back to Redcliffe, and if they were timely, then they wouldn't have to travel with snow on the ground. They could winter in Redcliffe, or better yet, in Denerim, and take care of the Landsmeet and Loghain over the winter. But if those things were to happen, then they must get moving. It was no telling how long they would be underground with the dwarves. If luck favored them, it would only be a few days. But as he and Solona had discussed, luck had rarely been on their side thus far, so they had no reason to believe it would be on their side now.

Morrigan rode roughly up beside him, pulling his attention away from their bad luck. "Sitting astride this animal is… easier than I expected."

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Really, Morrigan? You thought it would be difficult? _That's_ why you didn't want to ride the horse, and instead flew above us?"

She scowled. "You have never flown. 'Tis a feeling like no other. And it frees me from all of your company."

He smirked. "So why are you here now, then?"

Her frown deepened. "I… still feel weak from our ordeal in the Fade. Changing form takes energy, and flying is a waste of it, as I fly in circles overhead. Birds fly much faster than horses walk."

He laughed inwardly. Any excuse would do to not have to admit that she was actually seeking company. _His_ company, apparently. "Fair enough. Did you need any pointers on guiding your horse?"

"I do not think so. Solona told me the tricks she learned for her own mount. And mine is not so fractious as hers."

He nodded. "All right. Just don't saw on her mouth so much when you want to slow. It's irritating her, and she'll have a sore from it by the end of the day if you aren't careful. A small, quick tug backward will do. Then she won't stop all the way, she'll just slow down, and you won't have to get her going again."

She did as he said, and the horse behaved as he predicted. Matching his speed, she nodded to him. "You have my thanks, Alistair."

"Not a problem," the warden said, smiling. "I learned at least a few useful skills during my childhood as a stable boy. So, what are the others discussing back there?"

"Solona and Sten discuss his missing sword. The merchant he found at the lake led him to believe that it would be at Orzammar. Or, at least, the person who likely took the item will be there."

"Oh. Well, that's lucky, then."

"Except the merchant apparently does not stay through the entirety of the autumn season, so there is a very real chance that he will be gone by the time we arrive."

"Oh. Well, shit. What happens if that's the case?"

"I do not know," Morrigan answered. "Sten seems a logical creature, but he did lose control and kill that family of farmers. 'Twould not be unwise to prepare ourselves for defense should we not find this merchant, or should this merchant not have Sten's sword."

"I suppose," Alistair conceded. But fighting the Qunari was really not something he wished to do. "Let's hope the merchant hasn't left yet."

She smirked. "You do not wish to fight a giant, crazed qunari heathen? And where has your manhood gone, Alistair?"

"Safely tucked between my legs, thank you very much. And I would like it to stay _intact_."

"I suppose I cannot blame you for that. Though it reinforces my gladness that I have no such weakness, as a woman. All my necessary functions are safely out of the line of fire, as it were."

A brief spark of Ellia's most intimate areas flashed before Alistair's eyes, leading him very quickly to the faces she'd made while they made love. Glancing sidelong at Morrigan, the former templar wondered what her face might look like during such acts. What might she feel like? Her skin? Her lips? Her womanhood, wrapped around him, warm and silken and inviting…

"Alistair, what _are_ you thinking of?"

He blushed, almost choking on his own words. "Nothing! Nothing, I was just… thinking about how unpleasant fighting Sten would be…"

Morrigan clearly wasn't convinced, but she didn't push, and they continued on their way toward the forest's edge, Alistair now with an image in his head he couldn't shake.

* * *

"I still think it's a little too short. You're going to _freeze_."

Solona shrugged, looking in the mirror Leliana held up for her. "I imagine short hair is cold no matter how short it is. I can wear a cap when it truly gets cold. I would have had to anyway." She reached up, feeling her nearly bare scalp. "I was just so tired of the brown dye. I like the color of my hair, moreso now that I know it is part of my heritage."

"Well, I'd rather you not keep the look, but it certainly isn't unpleasant," Leliana answered, taking and stowing the mirror in her saddlebags.

"Hey, you look like you did when I met you at Ostagar!" Alistair exclaimed, right before being knocked to the ground with an _oof_. Morrigan, who was learning the finer points of hand-to-hand combat, had taken advantage of his momentary lapse of concentration. The group had decided that Morrigan and Wynne should both at least learn how to defend themselves without magic, since they might have to fight in Denerim, and templars could sense magic use in a small radius around them. The two might not wield traditional weapons, but knowing how to disarm or knock down a larger opponent was vital. One could simply run after that, and they were both quick on their feet.

Solona grinned as Morrigan let out a small, triumphant sound, backing up to let Alistair to his feet once more. Their growing closeness had not gone unnoticed, and given Leliana's currently raised eyebrow, the mage was not the only one to observe the change. Chuckling to herself, she made a mental note to rib Alistair as soon as they were both alone.

"So," Leliana said, coming up behind her and wrapping her arms around her middle. "Not that I don't appreciate how exposed you are, but why don't we rinse the hairs off so you can put more clothing on?"

"I suppose that's a good idea." Solona was standing without a shirt, just her breast-band and trousers. She was feeling the evening chill, which would drop to near freezing in the dead of night, and which had her nipples already standing at attention. Leliana slipped in a quick grope as she released her hold, shrieking and running as Solona yelped and then swiped an arm out for her. Laughing, the mage chased the bard to the stream they had been following to the main road. They dallied overly long in the stream, but no one seemed care one whit when they returned to camp.

Later that evening, Solona sat at first watch with Alistair. Leliana and Max were both asleep in her tent, rather adorably, if she had to be honest, the dog snuggled up to the bard to keep both of them warm. Zevran had retired to Wynne's tent – the only one the two of them bothered setting up these days – with a mischievous glint in his eye, and Sten had chosen to lie out under the stars as was his people's custom when on the road. Alistair sat facing away from the fire, a journal in his lap. He wasn't even looking at it, however, instead clearly lost in thought, eyes focused on nothing in the distance.

"So," Solona started, knowing she was being the opposite of subtle, and yet not caring. She really just wanted to get on to the teasing. "You and Morrigan seem to have become rather… _cozy_."

Alistair blinked as he focused on her. "What?"

She rolled her eyes. "Morrigan. You. It seems she doesn't _entirely_ hate you these past several days."

He looked down at his journal before closing it. "I suppose you're right. It's rather nice, actually. She's… pleasant when she's not being a complete harpy."

Solona smirked. "I'm sure." Kicking at some dead leaves, the first of the season to fall to the ground, she pushed on. "So what prompted her sudden change of heart? Last I remember, she told you to shut it in the ruins."

Her fellow warden just shrugged, dropping his journal inside his tent before rejoining her by the fire. "I can't really say."

"Liar. What did you do?"

He shrugged once more. "Maybe it was when I found her out in the woods? Maybe she feels I'm not completely useless?"

"You found her out in the woods?"

Alistair nodded. "Yes. She… well, she used up all her energy turning into a wolf and then couldn't hunt, I expect. I found her back in her human form, unconscious. After that, she's just kind of been… hanging around."

Solona considered this for a moment. Then it occurred to her that Morrigan's clothing did not transform with her, and she smirked. "Good view, then, when you found her?"

She got a slap on the arm for that. "She was unconscious! _I_ am a _gentleman_ , thank you very much. I averted my eyes."

She chuckled. "To be fair, I avert my eyes when she does that, as well. And she always tells me I ought not to. As if I wouldn't be crucified by Leliana were I to ogle another woman…"

"She does have a bit of a jealous streak, doesn't she?"

Solona snorted. "That's putting it mildly." She shook her head, trying to keep the huge grin trying to break through under wraps; Leliana had a tendency to channel her jealousy into ravishing Solona until it was difficult to walk or sit, something the mage did not mind in the least. "That streak is a mile wide, but she's not… controlling." _Well, only in the fun way_. "She just prefers not to share. I think she was forced to share a lot with that _bitch_ , Marjolaine. This is her first chance to have someone all to herself. She doesn't like to talk about it much, but I'm not completely oblivious. Bards' loyalties are ever changing and fluid, and that includes romantic and sexual entanglements."

"Well, she certainly is devoted. I can't even imagine what that's like."

Solona considered Alistair for a moment. It occurred to her how very different their sexual experiences were. He had only ever had casual encounters, whereas Solona, aside from that barmaid in Lothering Damian had introduced her to, had lain with only one woman. It was a very physical relationship. Solona wondered sometimes if it was normal, to fall in love like this. Even when they indulged their more animal desires it felt like lovemaking. She had no one to ask, however: Wynne had only just entered into a serious relationship, her lover having been a casual man before her; Alistair and Morrigan had similar histories to each other, as far as she could tell; and Sten was qunari, who _had_ no formal romantic relations.

Their conversation continued into the night, but Alistair's statement stayed with her for the rest of the evening. He wanted a relationship, and it appeared that he might want it with Morrigan. And Solona wasn't sure how wise that would be.

* * *

"You said you would tell me about the Joining," Leliana began, running her fingers through Solona's stiff, short hair. They were several days out from the Dalish, beginning their journey across the Bannorn. They would need to stop for supplies for their horses when they next happened on a village, but they were otherwise well-stocked from the elves, who sent them along with trail bread rich with nuts and honey, dried meats and fruits, and spirits. But these concerns had been far from Leliana's mind. Instead, she had been remembering Solona's promise to tell her how she had become tainted, how she had joined the Grey Wardens, and the foreboding she had felt when Solona had said that people wouldn't willingly join that Order if they knew the price they would pay.

Solona stretched before wrapping her arm around Leliana's stomach and snuggling in closer. "I suppose I did, didn't I? So much has happened since then…"

"Well," Leliana said, running her hands through Solona's hair once more, "tell me now?"

Solona sighed. "I'm not sure where to start, to be honest."

Leliana scowled up toward the dark roof of their tent. It felt like Solona was stalling, and that frustrated her immensely. "Just… _start_. I will stop you if I get lost."

A pause, then, "Very well. I… we had to drink the blood of a darkspawn we had killed that day."

Leliana pulled back, looking down at her lover in the dark, aghast. "What?! That's horrible!"

"And _that's_ why I wasn't sure how to start." Solona pulled away, sitting up and taking Leliana's hands in hers. "The blood is added to a potion that a mage produces, changing it so we don't become a ghoul, so we retain our minds. But the blood still bears the taint, and so we are tainted. We can hear the archdemon, have dreams about the darkspawn. That is… if we survive the Joining." Leliana physically winced at this, as if she had been slapped. "The Joining can easily kill you. I was the only one to survive in my Joining, on the eve of battle at Ostagar."

"What… how… how many of you were there?" It was not even the question she wanted to ask, but it was the one that came out.

"Three. Daveth didn't survive. Jory…"

"What?" Leliana's imagination was running wild with possibilities. A ghoul? What was worse than simply dying?

Solona sighed. "He was frightened, Leliana. He had just watched Daveth succumb and perish. So he drew his sword on Duncan, said he wished to leave. Duncan… Duncan had to kill him."

Leliana literally felt her jaw drop. "He _killed_ him? Why?!"

"Because there is no going back once the ritual starts. Either you become a Grey Warden or you die a Grey Warden. Those are the only two options. You cannot leave the order once you know about the ceremony."

"So he killed him for wanting to leave?" Leliana was incredulous. "Was there no other way? Could he not… talk him down, convince him to go through with the ceremony?"

Solona intertwined their fingers. "He pulled his sword, Leliana. He was willing to kill Duncan in order to get away. And… well, it is not an order for the faint of heart. If you cannot even face the Joining, how can you face the darkspawn? The archdemon?"

Leliana stared in the dark, just able to make out her lover's hair but unable to see anything of her eyes. She was accustomed to being able to see Solona's eyes, to read what her lover was feeling, what she was thinking. It was… disconcerting, not to be able to now. "Are the Grey Wardens truly so unfeeling? How can you devote yourself to this ideal?"

"I… am not sure that I do. But it is how Duncan comported himself, and he had every right, as Ferelden's Warden-Commander. Perhaps, if it had not been on the eve of battle, Duncan would have been more willing to reason with Jory, but from what I could gather from Alistair and the other wardens just after the ritual, that is simply how things are done. Not so dissimilar to the execution of deserters in the army."

Leliana was quiet for a time. Her lover, her beautiful, kind, giving lover, thought that this ultimatum was… _appropriate_? How could she think that? The bard simply could not reconcile this.

"Leli, please don't think me an awful person." She squeezed the bard's hands in hers.

"How could he do these things? How could he kill his recruits? Watch them die? How can _you_ do these things?"

Solona's tone was wry. "Well, I haven't had to yet." She sighed. "I'm sorry. That is not funny. I do not know, Leliana. It is something I have yet to face. I joined the wardens because I had no other real choice. I could be made Tranquil, be killed, or be a Grey Warden. Those were my choices. I… suppose I simply must face this particular part of being a warden when the time comes. If it is what the wardens do, then… who am I to judge Duncan doing his duty? Jory and Daveth died as wardens. You, me, and Alistair are the only ones to know the details. He is not disgraced in the annals of the Order."

"You consider them wardens even when they don't survive the Joining?"

Solona shifted in the dark, her head moving until it lay in Leliana's lap. Looking up at the bard, she answered. "Yes. The moment you enter the ritual, you are a warden. In the opinion of the Order, you are simply a warden whose time comes earlier than the rest of us. But all our time will come eventually, and we will hear our Calling."

Leliana stilled the hand that had automatically been petting Solona's hair. Her heart stopped for a moment. "What do you mean?"

The mage's hand stole up to caress Leliana's cheek. Leliana had to fight everything in her to keep from pulling away. It was very difficult to keep from being petty in this instance. "Leli…"

Finally, she gave in, jerking her head away. Grabbing the mage's face in both hands, she stared directly where she knew the woman's eyes were. "Tell me, Solona."

Solona sighed. "My life will be… shortened. The taint turns you into one of them, whether quickly or slowly. If it does not kill you outright, then eventually your dreams get so much worse that you begin to completely understand the darkspawn. It is not just whispers and impressions. That is when a warden knows; that is her Calling."

Leliana swallowed. Her throat felt dry, like she hadn't had anything to drink all day. Their evening coupling was long forgotten in the face of this new information. "What happens, Solona?"

The mage hesitated before answering. "The warden goes to the Deep Roads, choosing death fighting darkspawn while they are still the enemy. It is far kinder a fate than spending your life fighting them only to turn into their mindless tainted slave at the end."

Leliana sat still for a moment, Solona's head in her lap. She had released the mage when she began to explain. When Solona mentioned death, the bard had clutched at the thin blanket over her lap, curling her fingers into the fabric to keep silent.

Finally, she spoke. "How long?"

"What?"

"Solona, how long do you have? When does this Calling occur?"

A pause. "Thirty years from the Joining, give or take."

Leliana gave a sharp intake of breath. Thirty years? How could Solona be so flippant about that?! It was so _short_ a time…

"Leliana…"

"What?" It came out harder than the bard intended, more sharply than she had ever spoken to the mage before.

Solona sat up, moved closer, caressed Leliana's cheek. The bard tried to pull away. She felt overwhelmed, like the world was crashing around her and she had no place to go, no place to hold still until the storm passed. That place was usually Solona, but now the storm was _with_ Solona; the storm _was_ their shortened time together. She felt herself begin to hyperventilate. She was panicking.

"Leli!" The hand moved to her shoulder, the mage's other hand taking the bard's. "Leli! Breathe, Leliana!"

Leliana's shoulders were shaken once, twice, and it was all just too much. Jumping into action, Leliana grabbed the soft blanket that was now pooled around her ankles and shot to her feet. She was out of the tent in seconds, the blanket wrapped around her, Solona's shouts following her as she ran into the night. She heard a bark as she crashed through the woods, and knew that Max would be following her, but she did not care. She needed to be away, to think, to panic without Solona's hovering worry.

* * *

"Leli! Where are you going?!"

Solona tripped, falling on her face halfway out of the tent. She scrambled to her feet, not caring that she was completely and utterly naked, Alistair sitting by the fire and staring, his jaw hanging open. Leliana was rather far away now, and Solona had no tracking skills. She stopped running, knowing it was futile, and stood staring after her lover. How did that possibly go so wrong?

"What happened?" Alistair came up next to her, placing his cloak on her shoulders. She grabbed at it idly, pulling it tight around her against the chill of the night air.

She shook her head. "I do not know how it went so wrong. But she's not armed, and I can't track, and she'll _freeze_ …"

Alistair whistled and Max, his watch-mate, was at their side almost instantly. "Go follow her, boy. Protect Leliana." With a bark he jumped away, following in the same direction Leliana had run. "There," Alistair directed at Solona. "At least she'll be safe, wherever she ends up."

"Thank you," Solona breathed, watching the dog disappear in the trees.

"Come on." Alistair's voice pulled her attention away from the woods, and she turned to look at him in the firelight. "Let's get you some clothes and you can tell me what happened."

Solona nodded, turning and shuffling back to her tent, which was set up some distance from the fire for privacy's sake.

Later, she and Alistair sat drinking wine together. She had just finished explaining her conversation with Leliana to her fellow warden.

"I hope you don't mind me sharing those warden secrets with her." Solona looked over to him, hoping he wouldn't be too disappointed with her.

He sighed. "I know why you told her. You two share everything. I can't see you keeping your shortened lifespan a secret. As if you can keep _anything_ secret once she's determined to know it." He chuckled. "No, I don't mind. I know she won't go blabbing. But I _can_ see why she's upset."

Solona knit her brows. "Please, enlighten me. Because I can't for the life of me understand why she would go running into the night. _I'm_ the one who will be dying early, not her."

Alistair shrugged. "Think about it from her point of view, Solona. If you were planning on a long future with the woman you loved, and then she told you that her life would be half what it should be. And to be so _cavalier_ about it."

Solona tried to picture it. Leliana, grey in her hair, the heavy burden of knowing what her worsening dreams meant, and Solona at her side, with no options and powerless to stop what they both knew was coming. Leliana leaving to go into the Deep Roads; alone, leaving Solona without her. The mage's heart dropped down to her midsection with the realization.

"Shit. She has already been abandoned so many times – her mother, Lady Cecile, Marjolaine. She doesn't want me to abandon her, too."

Alistair nodded. "And now you've essentially told her you must, and she _must_ accept it. Add to the fact that we might not survive this Blight, and… Well, I certainly can understand her reaction."

 _As can I_ , Solona thought to herself, taking another deep drink from her wineskin. "I am an idiot," she said aloud, shaking her head. She gave the wine back to the other warden. "Go to bed, Alistair. I'll take watch from here. Second watch was mine, anyway, and it's not like I'm going to get back to sleep. I'd rather be the one to receive her when she gets back."

"You're sure? You don't want company?"

She shook her head. "No. I need to think." She looked up at him as he got to his feet. "Thanks for the talk, though."

"Anytime, Solona." He paused, looking down at her. "Just… don't push her, all right? I can't imagine she's going to be completely fine when she gets back."

Solona nodded. "Good thinking. Night, Alistair."

"Night," he said, before disappearing into his tent.

Sometime in the night, hours later, Leliana returned. She was still wrapped in the blanket, Max at her heels. She was visibly shivering. Her feet must be absolutely _freezing_. Solona was up in a heartbeat, flying to her lover and catching her up in her arms. She didn't say a word, just scooped up the shivering woman and hurried back to the fire. Depositing her on a log, Solona hurried to their tent, coming back with the furs from their bed. Leliana would warm up faster next to the fire than in the tent.

As she got to work, Leliana reached out. "Solona, wait," she said, her teeth chattering. "I've been thinking, and-"

"Hush, Leliana." Solona picked her up and settled her on the blanket she had put down next to the fire. "Let's just get you warmed up, all right? Are your feet okay? Do I need to check for frostbite?"

Leliana shook her head. "No. No, I checked while you were in the tent. Max kept me warm while I was away."

"Good." As she began wrapping Leliana in their furs, the bard stopped her again.

"Solona, please. I just have something to say, then you can fuss over me all you like."

Solona paused, her brows furrowed. "I'm listening."

"I… I just wanted to say that I will be with you for as long as you'll have me. I can accept that your life will be hard, and death will come for you sooner than most. As you said in the ruins: you can only be what you are. It… it is hard to accept, but nothing can be done for it now. It was a decision that happened before we met. And were you not a warden, we never would have met to begin with. And that," she finished, grabbing hold of Solona's hand and pulling her close, "I will _never_ regret."

Then she kissed her, and Solona fell in love all over again. She kissed her back fervently, her heart pounding with love and worry when she felt how cold her lover's lips and nose were. She was drawn to her knees, Leliana letting the light blanket she had run with fall open around her shoulders. "Oh, Leliana, if you keep that up…"

"Shhh," the bard whispered, drifting her fingers along the ties to Solona's shirt. Grinning slyly, she continued in a seductive purr. "I can think of something that will warm me up rather quickly. Surely it is time to awaken the next person for their watch, _non_?"

Grinning, Solona nodded, pushing herself to her feet to awaken Zevran and Wynne, who had last watch together that night. Returning to Leliana by the fire, she gathered the very naked bard in her arms, blankets and all, and marched her back to bed. She would get very little sleep this night, but it was a sacrifice she was more than willing to make.

* * *

They were on the road for almost two weeks. Solona and Wynne both had memorized maps of Ferelden during their time in the Circle Tower, which guided them well. But even still, it was a difficult thing to avoid suspicion while crossing the Bannorn, and it slowed them down considerably. There were either villages or farms, and the people populating either of these were suspicious of their group. But they could hardly be blamed. The wardens' group was rather suspicious-looking. They had a qunari and a mabari among their number, and all eight of them were armed to the teeth, quite literally in Max's case. So they stuck to goat trails, wooded areas, and tried to pass through villages in groups of two or three at a time, meeting again in the evening a predetermined distance down the road. Alerting anyone to their rather prominent, unforgettable presence was unwise at the moment, as there was still a price on the wardens' – and anyone who travelled with them – heads.

The weather was changing, thankfully. Wynne was glad for it, as the heat had been somewhat unbearable in her Chantry robes. She actually had always preferred the colder seasons. She was no gardener, instead finding delight in the snow, the crisp air, and in skating on the ice of Lake Calenhad. This would be the first winter since her childhood that she was not at the lake, in fact, and the knowledge both saddened and thrilled her.

As the two weeks passed, the nights got colder and colder, even as the days remained temperate. By the time they camped at the foot of the Frostback Mountains, it was cold enough that the furs had long been brought out in everyone's bedrolls, and even Sten slept in a tent each night to escape the chill. The trees had not yet lost even half their leaves, but the group was likely to get swirls of snow within the next six weeks, and the mountains would be impassable within twelve weeks. They really had very little time left to get the last of these treaties honored and enact the change of leadership in Ferelden they were hoping for. Luckily, they only had the one treaty left, and they were on the cusp of it, camping one more night on the road before their expected arrival at the entrance to Orzammar the next day.

Wynne retired that night before Zevran. This was her night without having to sit at watch, and she intended to use it sleeping. The weeks on the road had taken their toll, and while Wynne was not as old as she claimed, that did not mean she was young and spry like her companions. The cold, while welcome, meant that she was likely to experience some joint pain, which meant she would be sleeping most nights with the aid of spirits. She would not refuse if the dwarves had a real bed available.

Zevran joined her just as her robes were coming off for the evening. "Ah, I see I have impeccable timing, as usual," he quipped, hurrying to her side after kicking off his boots. His hands immediately went to the front of her robes, freshly opened and exposing her undergarments.

"Indeed," she answered, raising a brow at him. "Tell me, am I to be fondled to sleep?"

He smiled, helping her out of her robes and light corset underneath. "Only if you so desire, my dear Wynne."

Smiling, she lifted her arms, and the tight-fitting shift worn under the corset came up, her smallclothes quickly following. She snuggled naked into the linens under their furs, watching somewhat transfixed as the elf revealed the splendor of his own naked body. They made love most nights, though some nights they did not, simply undressing and falling asleep in each other's arms. She wondered if he was satisfied – she could often feel the evidence of his arousal on those nights they did not make love – but he did nothing to initiate, so she could only assume he was fine simply holding her while she fell asleep. Besides, they usually got to it the next morning on those occasions, so there really was no reason to feel any guilt.

In less than a minute his clothing was off, Zevran's leather armor the type that was rather easy to remove and hang to air out. He slid under the blankets next to Wynne as she extinguished the light from her staff. He spooned her, nuzzling his face into the back of her neck. Taking a deep breath, he squeezed her to him, causing goose bumps all down her left side from his exhaled breath. She rejoiced in the feel of his skin against her, and pushed herself deeper into the blankets, into his embrace, into the warmth that both offered.

After a few minutes, Zevran broke their silence. "I am sorry."

She shifted, trying to look back at him. "Whatever for?"

"I know you wished to find your old apprentice while we were with the Dalish. It was unlikely, but I know you still hoped, nonetheless. I am sorry we did not find him."

"Oh," she answered, settling back in. "I suppose it was foolish to hope. But you are right, of course. I had hoped we might find some sign of him. To know whether he even made it to the Dalish or not."

"Sometimes, not all our questions can be answered to our satisfaction," he intoned. "It is a lesson you learn well as an assassin, having to study a mark as we did."

"I suppose that lesson _can_ be applied more broadly to life," Wynne sighed. "Though it saddens me how you learned it. What did you do when you could not answer all your questions about your target?"

She felt him shrug. "You predict as best you can what might happen."

"And if you are wrong?"

He shrugged again. "You are dead as often as not. But in this, it is different. I suppose you can choose to believe he made it. Whichever option feels most right to you, or which gives you the most closure."

"Anytime I think he made it, I chastise myself for being a sentimental fool," she retorted, feeling cross with herself. "The templars likely tracked him down and he is likely dead. I will never know for certain."

Instead of saying anything further, Zevran simply tightened his embrace, wrapping his arm snugly under her breasts, her head pillowed on the arm beneath it. There was nothing he could do beyond what he had already said. All that was left to him was to comfort her. And that was something he had become rather good at.


	36. Orzammar

"All right, Sten, there's a whole market of merchants here. Anyone fit the description?"

The giant horned man hummed low in his throat. "I did not receive much of a description."

Solona just blinked rapidly for a moment. "Well, did you at least get a name? Anything?" _Really, could he be less helpful?_

"He is called Faryn. The man at the lake called him 'squirrelly,' whatever that means."

"Small, weak, cowardly – like a squirrel," Leliana supplied helpfully. She sighed as she scanned the crowd. "Which describes most merchants, unfortunately."

Sten frowned. "Squirrels are clever, and I have always found them to be bold. They only run when they are truly at risk, gathering and stowing their food for the winter up until danger is imminent."

"Be that as it may," Solona interjected, sensing an argument on semantics coming up that she really didn't want to sit through with two non-native speakers of the common tongue, "he would have meant it in the way Leliana described. And she's right – that describes pretty much anyone _I_ can see. He didn't give you the color of the man's hair or anything?" Sten shook his head. She sighed. "Fine. We'll just have to look the old-fashioned way, I suppose."

It took an hour, but they did eventually find the man. Asking around for a human merchant named Faryn led them to a redheaded man who indeed had the look of a frightened squirrel – especially once he saw Sten approach with Solona, Max, and Leliana. He dodged and avoided their questions right up until Sten pulled his giant sword and threatened to run him through. That's when it came out that he _had_ salvaged a giant sword that looked qunari-made, but that he had already sold it. To a dwarf who made his home in Redcliffe.

"That buffoon is the one who bought it from you?" Solona remembered him. Dwynne, the cowardly dwarf who chose to hole himself up in his own home with his thugs instead of helping them defend Redcliffe village from the vile creatures that had attacked in the dead of night. She hadn't known how to convince him to help at the time. If they had had his help, Zevran may not have needed to lie recuperating in the Chantry in the village while they retook the castle. Zevran's help during that venture would have been invaluable.

She narrowed her eyes at the merchant, then turned and stalked away toward the rest of her companions, who had chosen to find stables for their mounts before seeing how to enter the city of Orzammar itself. Sten sheathed his sword with a scowl, following in Solona's wake with Max and Leliana.

As they approached the giant stone doors in the mountainside, they heard an argument in progress. "For the last time, human, I cannot allow entry at this time!"

"But King Loghain _demands_ the allegiance of the deshyr! Or lords, or whatever you call them in your assembly! I am his appointed messenger!"

Alistair, Morrigan, Wynne, and Zevran stood off to the side, looking highly conspicuous and yet staying out of the argument.

"I don't care if you're the king's wiper," the dark-haired dwarf in front of the doors responded. "Orzammar will have none but its own until our throne is settled!"

The men looked about ready to come to blows. Solona decided to intervene. "I have important business in Orzammar, ser dwarf."

"No business more important than _mine_ ," the sallow-skinned representative of Loghain sneered.

"Solona!" Leliana hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Involving myself," Solona responded, stepping forward. "Is there no way in?"

"Your business will wait, human," the dwarf responded, looking every bit as irritated with her as he was with Loghain's man, though thankfully not yelling this time. "Orzammar must limit outside influence until the throne is settled. _No one_ gets in." He crossed his arms across his chest as he stared up at her.

"And if _I_ don't get in, no one should!" Loghain's man spat, stepping up to get his face in Solona's. Unfortunately, he was rather shorter than Solona, and as she stared down into his face, undaunted, she imagined he looked rather funny to an onlooker.

Turning, she faced the dwarf once more, thoroughly maddening the human representative. "Something happened to your king?"

The guard sighed. "Clearly you have not heard. Orzammar has no king. Endrin Aeducan returned to the stone not three weeks ago, sick over the loss of his son and daughter. The Assembly cannot agree on a successor, and if it is not settled soon, we risk civil war."

Loghain's soldier raged. "As do we! We need your allegiance to fight the darkspawn! Our king was killed by the wardens months ago! It is only by Loghain's wise leadership that we even remain a nation thanks to those traitorous bastards!"

"Hey!" Solona's shout was echoed by Alistair's. She found him at her side immediately, and they both stared down the other man. With their helmets off, he got a good look at them, his pale face paling further.

"You! You are the Grey Wardens!" He pulled his sword, brandishing it at them as if he were a danger. "You killed King Cailan! I will kill you, and be rewarded by the Regent for my deeds to the Crown!"

Solona narrowed her eyes. "Shall you, or shall I, Alistair?"

"Oh, I think you should. I rather want to see him turned into a toad."

Solona smirked. Incanting under her breath, she flicked her hand out, and a gust of air pushed the man over. He fell on his rump with a soft _oof_ , and in seconds Solona had his sword in her hand and her boot to his chest. She leveled the sword's point at his throat.

"Insult our Order's name one more time, oaf. Loghain is the traitor, fleeing at Ostagar and leaving his king and the wardens to _die_." She pressed the sword in slightly, making it difficult for him to breathe.

"Go back to your coward of a Regent," Alistair chimed in, standing side-by-side with Solona, his sword drawn and pointing at the messenger. "Tell him his days on the throne are drawing to a close." Alistair's face scrunched. "Tell him Maric's son says it."

Solona let the man up, tossing his sword to the bottom of the steps. "Go, _messenger_. Deliver your missive."

He ran off to join his brethren. There were only three of them, and as soon as he reclaimed his sword they vanished into the throng of merchants crowding the plaza. Solona turned around once more.

"Well," she said, coming to stand before the dwarven guard once more. "I suppose we're outed, now. We are the surviving Grey Wardens of Ferelden, and we have treaties compelling the free kingdoms in this land to aid the wardens in the event of a Blight. And we are in the middle of one, ser. We really must speak to whomever is in charge."

The dwarf regarded them with a raised brow. "You don't happen to have these treaties with you, do you?"

"Ah yes, ser." Leliana stepped forward, producing the sheaf of documents with a slight flourish. He took them, shuffling until he found the appropriate one.

"This is the seal of the Assembly. Only _they_ can address it, and it states that the wardens should be admitted into Orzammar at once upon presentation of this document." He handed it back to Leliana, looking back up at Solona. "Are all of you wardens?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Only this man and myself are wardens. But I must insist we all be allowed into the city. Our companions are crucial to our task."

He stroked his beard for a moment before nodding. Stepping aside, he said, "Very well. You may enter Orzammar unhindered, as the document states. _Atrast tunsha_ , Warden."

They stared up as the giant door opened for them. Stifling the urge to make some quip about size compensation, Solona led her companions into Orzammar.

* * *

"I won't have fighting in the Commons! Move along!"

Leliana stared with wide eyes. They had just been witness to a murder; some fight of which they could not hear the words, just as they passed from the Hall of Heroes into this place, the Commons. The guard next to the dead body was shooing away onlookers.

"You! Strangers! This is not the place for you! Begone!"

The guard came up to them, eyeing them suspiciously. "What are you doing here, topsiders? No one is allowed in Orzammar right now."

Solona spoke up. "We are Grey Wardens, ser. We have treaties signed by the Assembly, and we need to speak with someone about how to have them honored. The guard outside sent us to speak with the Assembly."

The guard snorted. "Good luck. The Assembly can't even decide on a king to lead us, and our armies can't be rallied until they do. You wanna try your luck? Head up the stairs through that door over there. That's the Diamond Quarter, and that's where all the nobles are."

"Um, I could show them around." Leliana looked around to see a dusky-skinned dwarven woman. She was dirty, her skin covered in dust and grime, her shirt ragged and torn in places. Her face had a tattoo upon it, black ink and blocky shapes, dark and almost thick, like it stood out from her skin. Leliana was not sure, but she thought that the tattoo upon the face of a dwarf was significant in some way.

"Get out, Duster!" The guard bore down upon her. Leliana was horrified as she watched the girl shrink some under the ire of the guard. "Who even let you up here?!"

"Ah! Mercy, mercy! I was visiting my sister! She is consort to the Prince!"

"Well, get back to Dust Town, Duster!"

The girl was cowering a little, but she stood her ground all the same. "All due respect, but Dusters are allowed in the Commons if they have the brand. And I have the brand."

He almost literally fumed. Leliana swore steam would begin issuing from his ears any moment. So she decided to intervene.

"Perhaps she could be of some help to us, ser. She clearly knows her way around, and we do not." She gave him her best smile, the same one that allowed her to kill the leader of the soldiers all those months ago in Lothering without him suspecting. It did not have quite the same effect here, however.

"Oh, sod it all. Do what you want. Just don't come crying to me when she robs you blind." He walked back to the corpse, waving in their general direction as he muttered to himself.

"Thank you, _salroka_ ," the dwarf murmured, staring daggers into the guard's back as he walked away.

"You're… welcome, though I'm not sure what for," Leliana admitted. "You said you could help us?"

"Yes." She turned to face them all, staring up into their faces. Her eyes got big when she noticed Sten, but then Max stepped forward and nuzzled her hand with his big burly head.

Solona snorted. "Some fearsome warhound I have here. Max, leave her alone."

"Oh, it's all right, _salroka_ ," the dwarf said, taking the dog with both hands and roughing up his face. "I've never actually been able to meet a dog before. Are they all like him?"

"He's not like most," Solona said, kneeling next to him and scratching behind his ear. "He's incredibly affectionate, but also capable of killing a darkspawn ogre when the need arises."

"Wow, you fight darkspawn? Is that why you're here?"

"Sort of," Solona evaded.

Leliana stepped in. "Perhaps we can speak over a meal, or drinks? If you are to guide us around, we should get to know each other a little, yes?"

* * *

"I think your best option is my sister," the dwarf said around a mouthful of stew. They sat at one long table at the tavern, Tapster's, Alistair and Solona eating just as much as the dwarf they'd bought a meal for. The fare was simple but hearty, made of nug meat and mushrooms, with some root vegetables thrown in for flavor and variety. Most of the food available down here was grown out of sight of the sun, some low-light growing root vegetables being cultivated as well. Everything else had to be bought from the surface, but as trade had been halted during the Assembly's lockdown, they were stuck with what was immediately available. Luckily, salt existed in abundance down here, so while it was simple fare, it was at least not _too_ bland. It was a fact Leliana was glad for.

The girl's name was Natia Brosca, and she gave them a crash-course in the dwarven caste system. It turned out that Solona and Wynne both knew a great deal about it, given how well-read they both were, but their readings gave them no knowledge on the current state of dwarven politics. They also shared their story with the girl, watching her eyes get big as they described everything they'd been through. Her eyes nearly popped out when they invited her into the inn with them in the first place, and proceeded to buy her drink and a meal. She was not used to such treatment, that much was clear to Leliana.

Solona raised an eyebrow. "Your sister?"

Natia nodded. "Yes. She is consort to Prince Bhelan. She bore him a son weeks before the king died. I am allowed into the Diamond Quarter strictly to visit her and my mother. I…" She put her head down, a clear position of shame. "I still live in Dust Town. I was not allowed to move into the palace with them."

"Dare I ask why?"

She looked up again, a look of defiance coming over her face. "I wouldn't sleep with him. I… simply put, I don't like him. And I refuse to try to get above my station by _whoring_ myself out to the noble Houses." By the time she was through her explanation, her eyes _smoldered_.

"I can appreciate that sentiment," Leliana murmured, getting her attention. "We all have… _colorful_ pasts, Natia. We are all mifits, outcasts, in some way. I have been in a similar situation and I… was not so strong as you at the time."

The dwarf smirked, then shuddered. "I also don't savor the idea of him sharing the both of us. I don't blame Rica for seeking her fortune this way, but I've always had a hard time swallowing the lot everyone else forced me into." She looked up, then, looking a little sheepish. "Sorry. I'm… outspoken for one of my station. You didn't ask any of this."

Solona beat Leliana to her response. "Hey, I asked why you couldn't be in the palace. You answered."

"Besides," Leliana chimed in. "We need to know how things work here if we are to navigate. I find the people with the most insights into how a system works are those at the very bottom of the structure. And here, that would be the casteless. Like you. Thankfully, you are outspoken and willing to tell us exactly how it is."

Natia blushed, a red hue sweeping across her dusky cheeks. "I just hope I can help. I… I've wanted to be a part of something bigger than me. They don't let us bear weapons – like that stops us," she laughed. "But we can't join the army or battle darkspawn unless we join the Legion, and I haven't been able to bring myself to that. I can't leave my family. Not for certain death. And not for a people that don't even care about me beyond what children I can produce for their nobles."

"Well, you said you can get us in to see one of the candidates for king, though," Alistair finally piped up. "When do you think we can meet him?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment. "We can go to the palace tomorrow. You should go to the Assembly first, I think. Show that you're impartial and all that nug shit that's important to the deshyrs. You might be able to speak with Harrowmont's Second when you're there, or at least get in touch with him."

Morrigan perked up, showing interest for the first time. "You do not encourage us to go to this Prince Bhelan? Curious, for someone related to a member of his House…"

Natia looked hard at Morrigan. Leliana couldn't help but admit that the witch had a point. "I don't like him. He's not completely useless about the casteless, but he's a slimeball, and thinks women are really only good for one thing. And…" She looked around, continuing only after a moment to make sure they were not overheard. "There are rumors that his brother died because of him. His sister got the blame and was exiled, to fight her way through the darkspawn in the Deep Roads to her death. But Gorim, her Second, was there with her, and he swears Bhelan framed her and killed his own brother." She paused for a moment, frowning. "If that's true, then he's lost any respect from me he might have had, father of my nephew or not. I do not trust a kinslayer."

Leliana considered her for a moment. She was clearly very close with her sister. Family was very important to her. If Bhelan was a kinslayer, then this woman, who valued family above all else, would not be impressed or amused. Leliana sincerely hoped, for Natia and her family's sake, that it was not true.

Natia changed topics after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. "I wanted to know something, if you don't mind me asking," she said, addressing Solona.

"Hmm? What can I do for you?"

"The brand on your face. It's a different color, and much prettier than those we give ourselves. What is its significance? I didn't know anyone but dwarves did that."

Solona smiled, taking a long pull from her mug of ale. "Well, Dalish elves tattoo their faces at maturity. It is a sign of becoming an adult, and they often select a member of their pantheon to honor with the markings. But mine… It's a somewhat long story. You know how the dwarves trade lyrium with the Circle of Magi on the surface?" The dwarf nodded. "Well, I am a mage."

"Really? You can work spells and such?" Solona nodded. "Can- can I see?"

"Really, Solona, we are not here to perform tricks for this street rat," Morrigan chided.

"Shut it, Morrigan. I can do as I please." Leliana stifled a laugh as Solona began to incant under her breath, and then a fireball danced in her open palm above the table.

"Showoff," Alistair muttered, laughing and taking a drink from his own mug. Solona laughed as she extinguished the flame, clapping Natia on the shoulder. The dwarf flinched, possibly expecting it to burn her, then shook her head and laughed as well.

Solona got up from the table. "Come along, Natia. Why don't you show us around some? We have need of some things these merchants are likely to have. I'll tell you the rest about my tattoo as we walk."

* * *

The next day, only Alistair and Solona accompanied Natia to the Diamond Quarter. Leliana had wanted desperately to go, but it wasn't actually her business, as she was not a Grey Warden. So she wandered the stalls with Wynne instead, trying hard not to mope. She was taken with the dwarven architecture, and the two women had a lively discussion about it. In the end, they both decided that, while it was beautiful in its own way, neither of them would prefer to live among such grandeur.

After several hours and conversation on a range of topics, Leliana found herself venturing into territory she had promised herself after her midnight barefoot venture that she would leave be. "Do you know what you will do, Wynne? After… all this?"

The mage looked up from the vials of raw lyrium dust she was perusing. "Hmm? What? Why do you ask, dear?"

The bard fingered a shawl nearby. "Well, this is the last treaty. Once we are through, we will travel with the arl and his soldiers to Denerim, to unseat Loghain. Alistair and Solona both think that with the first thaw in the spring will come the armies of the Blight. We are… very near the end of this."

Wynne considered her for a moment before going back to the vials of lyrium. "I do not know. The future is uncertain, and it seems foolish to make plans. You say all those things as if they are but a small detail, when they are in fact the whole reason for why we are here: to unseat Loghain, and to rally the armies in Ferelden to face the Blight. All that has led up to it is merely… preparation, for the final battle."

Leliana couldn't help but feel chastised, and tried hard not to react in defense of herself. "I… I suppose you're right. With the future so uncertain, it would only serve to disappoint, were we all to make plans." _The plans I had already made have been cut in half, at least. I should have learned my lesson._

Wynne placed a hand on her arm, getting her to look up into the slightly taller woman's face. "I am not saying it is not advised to have hopes and dreams, Leliana. But acknowledge that you cannot rely on any given future possibility to come to pass." She paused, regarding Leliana for a moment. "You are allowed to hope your warden survives, dear. You are allowed to hope for a future. But you should prepare yourself for the worst outcome, as well. Just as I do." As the mage paused, Leliana could not help the dark thoughts. _Even_ _ **if**_ _she survives, I do not get the future I had hoped for._ "I hope for a future with Zevran. I want to see what it might look like. But I try not to dwell on it, for I cannot make it happen simply by wishing it. I am a talented mage, but I do not think even Solona can transport herself to whichever future she chooses merely by wishing it so."

Leliana sighed, trying to let her bitterness go. "Nor would she if she could. For someone who rebelled against those in authority over her, she is surprisingly loyal to her duty. It is incredibly frustrating. But… also part of why I fell in love with her."

The older woman chuckled. "Indeed. She can be stubborn, can't she?"

"Frustratingly hard-headed, more like." Leliana shook her head, smiling despite herself. "I do love it, though. She does not refuse to see reason, merely has learned that she usually gets what she wants if she digs in her heels and looks intimidating."

"If only all of us could fall back on such a thing," the mage chuckled. "I'm afraid I have no idea what it feels like to be intimidating to others." Leliana gaped. Wynne noticed after a moment, raising her brows. "What is it?"

"Surely you're joking, Wynne? You are a mage! You can wield powers most people cannot even conceive of!"

"Oh," Wynne said, looking down and away. "You have a point, I suppose. Though I do try to use the powers I wield to help others, not intimidate them."

Leliana raised a brow. "And yet I have seen you knock an ogre's face to the side with a boulder you raised from the ground with nothing but the power of your mind."

Wynne mock-glared at her. "An old lady must learn how to defend herself, Leliana. Not all of us know how to hide a dagger in the most _unlikely_ of places."

Leliana opened her mouth to retort, but was never actually able to say anything. Instead, she heard Max's distinctive bark, and when she looked for him, she saw Alistair and Solona's tall figures wading through the crowd of Commons merchants. Abandoning Wynne with the woman's nod of approval, she made her way to meet them.

She was swept into a brief hug by Solona as Alistair and Natia came up behind her, scowling. Leliana pulled back, looking over their faces. "Dare I ask the news?" All three of them looked exasperated.

"Not here," Solona said, taking Leliana's hand and heading in the direction of Wynne's stall. "We should meet in someone's room at the tavern. Our visit was not entirely fruitless, but it certainly _feels_ as though it were." They retrieved Wynne, heading for the inn and the rest of their companions.

* * *

"So what you're saying is, you must essentially swear fealty to one party or the other before you're even allowed to _see_ him?" Solona just nodded in answer to Leliana's question.

Morrigan scoffed. "That is preposterous!"

"I agree, but it is the situation we find ourselves in, regardless," Solona answered, sighing as she finally gave up her pacing and slumped onto the bed next to Leliana. The bard instinctively reached out, running her fingers through the practical stubble that was Solona's hair. She felt her lover relax slightly at the touch.

"So you did not have the sort of connection to the prince that you were hoping for then?" Zevran addressed Natia, pulling her attention away from the platter of cheeses and breads that had been delivered to the room for them.

"No, I didn't," she replied, her eyes going immediately back to the food. Leliana supposed a lifetime of poverty and scarce food, especially riches such as cheese and bread, would make _anyone_ that attentive to food. _The poor dear_.

"Do you feel you could expand on that?"

She sighed. "Look, elf. I'm the lowest of the low here. They don't care about the prince's consort's sister, and she honestly doesn't have all that much clout either. The Prince ran scared, and it's not worth her word on _my_ word that you all won't try to kill him. He _really_ wants to be king. Enough that he killed his brother and framed his sister for it, if the rumors are to be believed."

"And according to _Harrowmont's_ Second, Harrowmont has run scared because he doesn't want _Bhelan_ to be king," Solona added. "He is afraid of death, and what that would mean for the Assembly's choice."

"How old are these people?" Leliana wondered aloud. "This is… _child's_ play compared to the political maneuvering I have participated in."

"This is _dwarven_ politics," Natia pointed out. "We are a different people than what you described to me last night about your own people. We do not hide behind closed doors. Bhelan and Harrowmont both know the other wants them dead. A murder was committed in the streets. We are not a subtle people."

"Still," Zevran said from his spot leaning against the wall. "They hide like cowards. Neither of them would make a good leader if this is how they face a threat."

Alistair stood from the table, where he'd been perusing the food next to Natia. "I agree. A leader must be strong and face threats head-on. But we can't do anything about that. These are the two contenders we are left with. And the Assembly has been deadlocked for weeks. We have the chance to back one of them and sway the Assembly, and then get our treaty honored. I say we take it, as bitter a taste it leaves in my mouth to support either of them."

Solona sighed again. "I agree. But who to support? They both gave us tasks to prove our _loyalty_ , whatever that means in this situation. As if we are their servants, to run them errands."

"Well," Leliana interjected, "what are these tasks?"

Natia was the one to answer. "We can have someone fight as Harrowmont's Champion in the Proving, or we can set Harrowmont up with some forged documents for Bhelan."

"Forged? How do you know?"

Natia shrugged, grabbing another hunk of cheese and bread. "I recognize the handwriting. I had a… _friend_ , when we were part of the Carta together, who specialized in the stuff. This is his work, no doubt about it."

"I've been thinking about it, and I think if I must back someone, it should be Harrowmont," Alistair said. "He only wants us to support him, not to blacken Bhelan's name. It is far more honorable, noble, which is how a king should be."

"Your sentiment is astounding," Morrigan sniped, "And you are unsurprisingly _wrong_. We should pick he who is stronger, who commands the most respect among the soldiers here, and who would be the best leader during the Blight. Let them go back to bickering amongst themselves once the Blight is dealt with. Their infighting need not concern us, so long as they are united through the battle ahead."

"While you have a point," Solona cut in, stopping Alistair mid-retort, "we do not know who would be best. They are both respected for different things. Bhelan is a good soldier and leader on the field, while Harrowmont is said to be a natural leader and diplomat. Both would be useful in this war. The only thing we can really go on is what leaves the least bitter taste in our mouths." She sighed. "I agree with Alistair. And as it is I who am ultimately in charge, and I who will be supporting Harrowmont in the Proving, I think that's my final decision."

"None of us get a say at all?" Wynne stepped forward.

Solona shrugged. "It's a shit situation. Would you advise me differently? Or would you, Wynne, say to go with what left me the least uncomfortable?" Her smile was wry.

"Indeed," Wynne conceded, her smile conciliatory, "that is exactly what I would advise."

Solona turned to the other mage. "Morrigan?"

The witch scowled. "I think you make the decision on the wrong grounds, but as you rightly point out, you have no other grounds on which to base it at this moment. I will side with whomever you choose, Solona."

Leliana tried valiantly to keep the shock from her face. That Morrigan would agree with Solona wasn't necessarily outrageous, but that Morrigan would admit someone who disagreed with her opinion might be right? _That_ was what flabbergasted the bard.

Solona looked around. "Anyone else?" Sighs, murmured negatives, and shaken heads all around. "All right, then we are agreed. Now, Natia, would you be kind enough to teach me what in the Maker's name a Proving is?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at Orzammar! I included the dwarf commoner origin, because she's kick-ass, and because I love the dwarves, and because, well... I wanted to. I actually decided near the beginning of all of this that I wanted to include as many of the origins as I could, even if just in passing (as with the Aeducan origin).


	37. Orzammar II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thar be smut ahead!

 

Solona won the Proving with little trouble. Even though she had only been wielding her weapons for a few months, she was incredibly skilled, and accustomed to fighting opponents much larger and stronger than she was. It took her some time to adjust to fighting someone shorter than her, rather than taller than her, but after being knocked over a few times she adjusted, beating every opponent she was put up against. She had been worried about not being able to use magic – it was against the rules, and besides, dwarves were largely immune to magic anyway – but she had spent plenty of time fighting without it while sparring with Sten and Alistair, so it didn't end up being a problem the way she had feared.

Alistair joined her for a few of the fights, along with the fighters they had convinced back to Harrowmont's side. It was different, fighting alongside warriors with no special skill except brute strength. She preferred their eclectic party of mages, warriors, and assassins, but that obviously wouldn't do in a competition such as this. It was strange, fighting against opponents bent on beating her, but not on killing her, and yet were not her friends. But it was a strangeness she did not focus on for more than a moment, as she was far too busy fighting.

She had been celebrated quite thoroughly after the competition. The Proving had been an all-day affair, and Solona really only wanted to sleep after she had finished. She felt she had earned it, thoroughly trouncing so many muscular dwarves with her sword, the daggers she still had from her cousin, and her speed. But the dwarves at the inn insisted upon drink after drink, until she was well and truly drunk. Leliana had led her off to bed sometime around midnight, where she had promptly fallen asleep, without even removing her boots.

Now, she lay awake, a naked Leliana curled up next to her under the blankets. Pushing the covers off, she slipped out of bed, smoothing the blankets and inviting Max up next to the bard to keep her warm. Lighting a candle, she smiled as she walked across the cool stone floor of the room – Leliana had removed her boots for her – and made her way to the tub built into the stone in the corner. She was fascinated as she drew a bath for herself, turning a knob and watching as the water was drawn through piping and into the bath. The first time she had sworn it was magic, but someone had explained to her how it worked, and she realized that it was simply an incredible amount of ingenuity. She learned all she could, Alistair teasing her for not truly being able to leave her Circle tendencies behind.

As she peeled off her rather filthy clothing – what she had worn under her armor the day before – and stepped into the warm water, she thought about this some. She really was an intensely curious person, and always had been. While she still bitterly resented her chained upbringing in the Circle, the fact remained that it was quite possibly the only place that she was able to indulge in her curiosities and live a life of scholarly pursuit, particularly given her peasant background. She wondered what the Circle might look like had Andraste's vision been born into reality. It was difficult to picture, though, as it would mean a fundamental difference in the way their very _society_ operated.

Sighing, she finished washing, staying in the water far longer than necessary, just to relax and ease the aches from the injuries she had sustained the day before. She had healed all of it with no problems between matches, but the bruising remained, as it always did. The hot water seeped in, soothing her, loosening tight muscles and rejuvenating her the rest of the way that sleep had not done.

When Solona finally decided to leave the tub, she found Leliana lying on her side, her hand resting on Max's chest as she watched the mage emerging from the water. She'd been so quiet, Solona had not noticed that she was awake. Smiling, the mage toweled off – perhaps a little more slowly than was strictly necessary - before padding over to the bed with the towel wrapped around her chest.

"You are blocking my view," Leliana said, reaching over the dog and tugging the towel loose. It fell, catching at her hips before hitting the ground. "There, that is better."

Max grunted and got up, moving to the door and sitting politely, staring at them to let him out. Solona snorted as she moved to free the dog.

"You know, I ought to punish you," the bard began, causing Solona's heart to pick up its pace, drumming a steady tattoo against her ribcage as she returned to the bedside.

"Oh? What did I do?"

Leliana didn't answer, instead grabbing Solona's hand and pulling her down to her knees before the bed. Sitting up and throwing the blankets off, the bard put one knee on either side of Solona, revealing the pink, glistening folds of her sex, peeking out from downy, fiery red curls. Apparently, the bard had worked herself into quite a frenzy while Solona had been bathing, judging by how wet she was. The mage's heart began to beat even harder against her ribs in anticipation.

Looking up into those crystal-blue eyes, Solona saw that they had grown dark with desire, the pupils already fully dilated. Leliana's lips tipped up at the corners in a sly smile, and without warning, she gripped Solona's chin in one hand, the other shooting out to fist her short hair, pulling her close.

Moving her lips close to the mage's ear, she positively purred, "There were so _many_ people interested in you last night, proud victor that you were. I simply thought I should… _stake my claim_ before you became aware." Her voice dripped sex, making a shiver trail down Solona's spine. Leliana pressed a brief kiss to the ear she'd spoken into before both hands slid behind the mage's head, guiding her face forward.

Solona knew when she was being given an order. She also knew when it was all in good fun, and this definitely fell into that category. It was like adult play, and she was more than willing to participate. The smaller woman taking possession of her, literally marking her with her arousal like this, made Solona's blood pound, in her chest as well as between her legs.

Flicking her tongue out, she tasted the slightly salty, slightly tangy taste of her lover's sex. Leliana let out a growl and pressed Solona's face further forward, until she could scarcely breathe. As the bard began to grind slightly against Solona's face, the mage put her hands on Leliana's thighs and pressed her tongue against her lover's entrance. It was intoxicating, being surrounded by the bard in this way, and her world contracted to a point where the only thing that mattered was how far she could reach her tongue, and how often it made Leliana buck forward.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Solona able to just barely breathe, Leliana began to thrash. The warden recognized the feel and backed off, lightly stroking her tongue along the bard's bundle of nerves as her climax took her. She felt the telltale splash of wetness on her chin, prompting an answering flood between her own legs. Clenching her thighs at the throb of desire between them, she shuddered in anticipation.

Leliana pulled her away after a moment, panting and shivering, her skin flushed pink. The sight made Solona breathless – the ruddy skin of her face, her heaving breasts with their hard nipples, her stomach and thighs flushed with heat and blood– and she was so, so tempted to take the woman into her arms and ravish her once more.

But Leliana beat her to it. "Maker, you look delicious like that," Leliana breathed, leaning down and running her tongue along Solona's bottom lip. The mage whimpered, knowing Leliana was tasting herself, knowing that Leliana was by far not done with her. "Do you think you have another in you?" Leliana asked, her voice a mere whisper near Solona's mouth.

Before she could answer, Leliana tugged her to her feet, pressed her to the bed, and straddled her. The bard kissed her hard, lapping up every drop of her own fluids from Solona's lips and chin before pulling back with a smirk.

"Maker, to see you like this…" Solona, too, had an excellent view. Pale skin, flushed pink, ropped by sleep- and sex-tousled red hair… Her heart kicked in excitement.

Moving forward, Leliana settled straddling Solona's face, their eyes locked. The mage's arms were pinned by her lover's legs, making her core pulse with need, her face flushing with embarrassment at how worked up she had become. The look Leliana gave her made it clear what she wanted, but Solona could not obey, as the bard was holding fast to her hair with both hands, Solona's prize just out of reach.

Holding Solona's gaze, Leliana raised a brow. "Well?" She then released the mage's hair, smirking as she straightened and lowered herself, staring down the valley between her breasts. "Go on, then."

* * *

"Ser, please, she has been our guide here in Orzammar."

"Be that as it may, I am not about to let a Duster in to see our future king."

Solona narrowed her eyes at the door guard, getting ready to say something nasty. But Natia grabbed her hand, turning her around. "It's all right, warden. I'll wait outside with the others. It's really not my business." She smirked. "And I have no interest in being known for socializing with a noble."

"Well, look at who's better at being diplomatic than either of us," Alistair murmured as the dwarf walked back out into the entrance hall of Harrowmont's estate.

Solona snorted. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

They turned as the massive doors were opened for them, stepping through into a moderately sized room; much smaller than what she expected, given the size of the doors leading in. Standing by a large stone desk in the middle of the room was a dwarf with steel-grey, long hair, and a beard to match – as all dwarven men did here. He stood serenely, not greeting them in any way, just watching as they came closer.

Finally, once they stood before him, the man spoke. "I appreciate what you have done, Wardens, and I apologize for putting those of your rank through such trials. I am Lord Pyral Harrowmont, and I thank you for your efforts to help preserve King Endrin's throne."

"Well," began Solona, crossing her arms as she peered down at the man in front of her, "you certainly get right to the point. I am Solona Amell, and my companion is Alistiar Theirin."

Lord Harrowmont seemed unfazed by her bluntness. "And how may I address you?"

Solona raised an eyebrow. "Warden-Commander Amell or Warden-Commander for myself, and Warden Theirin for my companion." Yes, she was definitely feeling contrary at the moment.

He nodded. "Very well. I, too, prefer to keep things formal when I am conducting business." He gestured to the seats next to his desk as he moved to his own behind it. "Please, make yourselves comfortable."

Solona moved to sit, almost falling over into the short seat. She felt ridiculous, with her knees up by her chest, but she scooted forward, folding her legs in front of her and resolving to not let it take her dignity from her.

"If I may be so forward," Alistair began, mimicking Solona's position, as he was even taller than she was, "why all the secrecy? Why could we not simply meet with you before choosing to fight in the Proving for you?"

"I do not mind. It is a… fair question. I believe you were there, when Bhelan's Second murdered one of my guards in plain sight?" They both nodded. "I could not risk that you were spies. Bhelan and his supporters have gone to extreme lengths to secure the throne, and the only thing standing in the way is myself and King Endrin's dying request that I keep his youngest from seizing the throne."

"But… why would the king choose you over his own son?" Solona wondered, furrowing her brows at the candidate for king.

The dwarf sighed. "You may or may not have heard the story, but let me make sure you have it correct. Bhelan is the youngest of three. Endrin's eldest, Trian, was murdered while out in the Deep Roads not a year ago. His middle child, his only daughter Sereda, was found standing over the body and was exiled to die in the Deep Roads, fighting darkspawn in not but her clothes and a single sword. But I always found it highly suspicious that Bhelan knew just where – and when – to look for her, and in time Endrin felt the same, though he never publicly said so. He loved his children far too much to publicly voice his doubt, even though he knew Bhelan's only interest in ruling was to further his own power."

"We had heard something to that effect," Solona ventured, puzzling over the problem. "So, the king asked you to keep Bhelan off the throne?"

"Yes, on his deathbed. I never thought to seek the throne. My role was to serve Endrin, first as his advisor, then as an elected deshyr in the Assembly. And you can ask any deshyr – a Harrowmont has never been king. I have never wanted it. I always assumed Trian would be elected to rule after his father. But now both Endrin _and_ my colleagues have asked me to step up, to put myself forth as a candidate for king to keep Bhelan from being elected by default. I will not back down when Orzammar needs me."

Solona's eyes drifted to Alistair at the end of Harrowmont's speech. It sounded a lot like the reasoning behind Alistair's change of mind in accepting the throne should the Landsmeet decide to have him. She wondered now what he thought of Harrowmont. It certainly did a lot to make Solona more sympathetic. She respected Alistair a great deal, and felt he would make a wonderful king.

As she pondered Alistair as king, the man himself continued their line of questioning. "So the Assembly elects the king? They have more power than the king? If so, that is similar to how the Landsmeet works."

"We need a single king to preside over important functions, and lead us in battle, but otherwise decisions are made by the Assembly. That body better represents _all_ in Orzammar."

Solona knit her brows once more. "But not everyone is allowed a say in this Assembly. Not all are given a voice in their own rule."

"Ah, yes, you speak of our casteless. It is a shame, really, that their parents chose to abandon their castes. They are already casteless – they should go to the surface and seek their fortunes among the other races, but they do not because they are told it would be even worse. They are afraid, and the lords do nothing but encourage it, for if they are not here then it would be much harder to find consorts to give them sons. But there is little I can personally do. Perhaps as king I could address these issues, but it is unlikely. It is the system we have, and those who rule prefer it this way." His beard twitched as he smiled slightly. "Those in power do so love to hold themselves above those who are not."

Solona frowned. "But how can you be so… _blithe_ about the treatment of people who did not ask for their positions?"

The dwarf's eyebrows rose. "Do humans not treat the elves in their cities worse? Are there not half-elven bastards forced to live a life not belonging to either group because of the rape of young elven maidens or hidden human trysts with elven men? We all have our deep shames, our mistreatment of others that are perfectly accepted by the masses. We at least have ways for the casteless to improve their children's lots." He paused, but Solona had nothing to add. He was right, of course, and she had no retort ready. "That said," he continued, "I do not think the casteless should be _so_ downtrodden. I cannot do much, but as part of garnering support for myself, I would like you to take care of a… problem in Dust Town for me. The commoners are always complaining of it to the Assembly, but no one has yet been able to unseat the root of the problem. If you can take care of this for me, it would show that I, and not Bhelan, have the ability to defend – and rule – this city. While he is busy lying and scheming, I will have done something to take care of the _real_ problems this city faces."

" _We_ will have done something, you mean," Alistair corrected.

Harrowmont smiled, a humorless thing. "Ah, but you are my Champions, and doing this thing at my direction. And with _my_ information."

* * *

"Leske, dammit! I'm going to _kill_ you!"

Natia stood at the head of their group, long twin knives she had retrieved from her house dripping with the blood of the fallen dwarves at their feet. Leske, the dwarf's once-friend, stood next to Jarvia, the leader of the carta and the one whose operations they were sent to stop.

"Jarvia came out on top after you killed Beraht, Natia. She's got the swords, the coin, and the bed where I sleep. If you hadn't decided to leave us and take coin from your sister, you would've done the same. You _also_ would've had a place with us, since you're the one who allowed Jarvia to rise to the top, _salroka_."

"Do _not_ call me that, Leske! You gave up that right when you attacked my friends."

"Well, _I've_ certainly had my fill of betrayals during this little holiday of ours," Solona quipped, coming to stand next to Natia, letting her arcane powers flood through her. As she continued, her voice took on its ethereal, multi-toned quality, and she watched with barely-contained delight as her foes' eyes filled with a quiet dread. "You take Leske," she said, addressing Natia. "I will deal with Jarvia."

"My pleasure," the dwarf ground out, bringing her knives to bear and marching purposefully toward her named target.

Jarvia laughed. "As if a mage could harm-" She never had a chance to finish. Dwarves might mostly be immune to magic, but they were not immune to that magic's effects. Channeling her arcane power had many effects, the first of which was that she was much faster than any normal human. Darting forward, she tripped the dwarven assassin. Jarvia rolled immediately, showing her ease with battle, and sprang to her feet, long knives much like Natia's held before her. Solona just grinned, pulling her glowing sword from her hip and circling quickly around the leader of the carta.

Solona's companions were moving around her, taking care of the rest of their opponents. She had no doubt they would fell their foes with little trouble. She was concerned only with this fight of hers. Three steps, four, and she found her opening. Launching forward, she willingly took Jarvia's knife to her thigh in order to impale the woman upon her sword, twisting savagely as she reached down to remove the blade stuck in her own flesh. Feeling her muscle begin to knit as the life fled from Jarvia's astonished eyes, she turned her back on the leader of the carta, stepping away to survey the scene of the battle.

Once she was sure she was healed completely, she allowed the arcane energy to quiet before tamping down on it completely. As she did so, she saw Natia take her last blow against Leske, slitting his throat and letting him fall at her feet. But he was not without some trick left, even as the life drained from his eyes. Reaching up from the ground, he threw his dagger at Solona just as Leliana, her back turned to him, ran up to the mage with a triumphant smile on her face.

Time slowing had nothing to do with her magic this time. Solona's arms were leaden as she reached forward to catch her lover, who looked around confused, a knife handle extending from her back, just under her shoulder blade.

Lowering her to the ground, Solona barely registered the flurry of activity around her. She hardly noticed Wynne take the bard from her arms, removing the dagger before laying her out and cutting her armor away. She didn't remember how she came to be holding her hands against the wound, exerting pressure while Wynne worked her magic. All she could focus on was the look upon Leliana's face, a look of pure and utter confusion as she tried not to drown in the blood now flooding her lungs, the very same blood which began to adorn her lips as the bard tried to breathe.


	38. Orzammar III

"Why don't you go get something eat?"

Solona's eyes focused, and she looked up to see Alistair standing at the doorway. They had moved Leliana to the closest hospitable place, Natia's house in Dust Town, and Solona was watching over the unconscious bard.

"Solona, you've been sitting here for hours. Let me watch her for a little while so you can grab something to eat and rest a little."

She shook her head. "I'd rather not, Alistair."

He crossed his arms while leaning on the doorjamb. "Let me rephrase this: Wynne has ordered me in, and you out. I would not want to obey her direct orders if I were you."

The corner of her mouth quirked up in a half-smile to match his. Shaking her head, she got up from her chair. "Very well, Alistair." The mage looked upon her lover, eyebrows knitting. There was dried blood in the creases of the bard's lips, and her color was still too pale. She had lost far too much blood while Wynne had worked, but the senior enchanter had saved Leliana, and her prognosis was good. It still scared the shit out of Solona, though. "Get me if she wakes?"

He smiled as he walked over, placing a hand on her shoulder in a familiar fashion. "Of course. It will probably be the first thing she asks for, anyway." He looked her up and down, frowning slightly. "Why don't you bathe, or at least change your clothes? You're still covered in her blood. I can't imagine you'll want her to see that when she wakes."

She looked down, seeing the blood soaking her shirt and hose. She had removed her armor, but had not bothered with the rest. She didn't like the idea of going all the way back to the tavern in the Commons to get her things, but Alistair was of course right, so she just nodded. With one last look at Leliana, pale and naked under a heavy blanket, she headed into the main room of Natia's house, finding the dwarf stirring something over the hearth.

"Ah, _salroka_ , there you are. Wynne and Zevran just left to go get your things from the inn. She thought you might want to change, but neither of them thought you'd be willing to go yourself." She lifted the spoon, serving some of the stew into a bowl. "Hungry?"

The smell coming from the hearth reminded Solona that she was ravenous. Nodding, she accepted the food and sat at the stone table. Everything here was stone. Unlike on the surface, it was wood that was attained if you had money. It was oddly comforting to Solona, who had grown up in a stone castle, surrounded by stone walls. The lack of any wood of any kind in this dwelling was a little strange, but she could not fault Natia for it. The dwarf was poor, and would always be as long as she stayed underground. Solona wondered if the girl had ever considered leaving, chasing her fortune on the surface. Perhaps she could discuss it with her. But not now. Now she was ravenous.

After a few bites of her meal, she asked the dwarf, "Is there any chance you have the same pipes to draw water here that they have at the inn?"

The dwarf, sitting across the table from her, shook her head. "Alas, no. There is a pump for the whole community in the square, and that's it." She nodded over to the corner. "But I figured you'd want to bathe at some point. You can take a sponge bath behind the divider over there. I haven't had to use it since my mother and sister moved out, but I took the liberty of setting it up for you."

"Oh, bless you." Solona paused, considering her new friend. "Thank you for your hospitality, as well. I don't think it would have been fun walking through the Commons with a bloody woman in my arms."

The dwarf waved her off. "You're more than welcome. And unfortunately, that isn't all too uncommon a sight in Dust Town. Well, it's weird to see humans doing it, but otherwise…" She winked, eliciting a chuckle from them both.

Solona finished her stew. She was still hungry, but no longer famished, so she simply took the bowl with her for washing and began to strip her clothing off behind the blind.

"Why do you stay in Orzammar?" she asked as she gathered sponge, soap, and bucket of warmed water, figuring now was as good a time as any to speak of Natia's situation.

Natia's voice came to her from the other side of the blind. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Solona began, soaping up the sponge and lathering her arms and shoulders. "Why do you not seek your fortune on the surface?"

"I suppose," the dwarf began, sounding a little unsure, "because my family is here."

"Your family is here, yes," Solona replied as she stepped into the water for further washing. "But is there anything else for you here?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

Solona sighed. "What else do you _do_ , Natia? You cannot ply a trade, nor will anyone teach you anything because of your casteless status. You can only go to the palace and visit your sister and mother. And from what you say, your mother is passed out from drink more often than not, and your sister is already pregnant again. You are not permitted to stay with your sister and nephew unless you agree to bear children for Bhelan."

"What would you have of me, _salroka_?" Natia's tone was somehow both defensive and plaintive.

"You said you wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself, but your mind languishes in Dust Town while you accept Bhelan's coin through Rica. Will they even teach you to read in this city?" She paused, taking a small bucket and pouring it over herself, rinsing the soap off. Spluttering water, she continued. "Go to the surface, Natia. Learn business from another dwarf; see the sun, the woods." She paused for a moment, an image of the dwarf slashing the carta members with her long knives flashing across her vision. "Or better yet, come with us, fight against the Blight."

"Come… with you? To the surface? But… my family…"

"They don't allow a surfacer back in?"

"They do, but you must wear the brand, and you're only allowed in the Commons or Dust Town…"

Solona paused in her chore of scrubbing her blood-soaked clothes. "Forgive me if I'm being impertinent, but that sounds an awful lot like the rules for casteless who _stay_ in Orzammar."

Natia's voice sounded thin, like she was having trouble breathing. "It's _exactly_ the rules for the casteless. The only difference is that surfacers have 'abandoned the Stone'…"

Solons poked her head around the blind to see the dwarf. Natia sat at the table, eyes unfocused and head tilted up and to the side, as if considering what Solona had said. Smiling, Solona returned to her chore, choosing to remain quiet on the subject. She hoped the dwarf would choose to come with them. They could use a fresh perspective, and she liked the woman. She didn't want to leave a new friend the way Leliana had been forced to leave the friend she had made in Mithra.

The mage frowned as her thoughts turned to her lover. She wanted to kill Leske all over again for what the little _maggot_ had done. He had already lost. And the knife would have done _nothing_ to Solona, but he had aimed it at the mage anyway. But it had hit Leliana instead.

Solona grimaced as she scrubbed, only able to see Leliana's prone, bloodied body in the swirls of crimson in the water. She had caught the bard in her arms, unaware Leske had thrown the dagger at first, unaware of why the bard might stumble. But Solona had made the connection quickly when she saw the handle sticking from between Leliana's ribs. Her mind had gone fuzzy, and she couldn't seem to manage to do anything but stare at the bard's confused expression, even when blood had flecked the woman's lips.

Wynne had wrested the bard from her, and before long Leliana had been topless and Solona's hands were pressed to the wound as Wynne worked her magic. Solona had panicked at that point, and she had begun to demand Leliana not leave her, what would she do if the bard left her.

And what _would_ she do? She'd been thinking about that question since she had taken up her vigil at Leliana's bedside.

This is what Wynne had warned her about at the beginning, and she had shrugged the woman off, for the most part. But she saw now exactly what the elder mage had meant. What if Leliana died, or was so injured that she could not continue with the group? What would Solona do if she was without her love? Traumatically injured, at least Leliana would be alive. But dead? Solona had gone through this one several times. At first, her answer had been that she simply would not be able to continue. The taint, the darkspawn, neither would kill her – grief would, plain and simple.

Then she had thought that through. If she killed herself, or starved herself, or intentionally let herself bleed out from some wound… what then? Alistair would be the only Grey Warden left in all of Ferelden, for one. He would have amazing support in his companions, but two of them – his two closest friends – would be dead, making for a very dreary group, indeed. Could she really do that to him? He would continue to fight the Blight either way, but what would it do to him? It would break him, and he might not make it to the end. And even if he did, could she really be so selfish as to halve their numbers because of her grief?

The answer had been simple: no. She might be numb with grief, but she would simply _have_ to keep on. Her Aunt Leandra had continued on after Malcolm had died because other people were relying on her, and she had people to mourn _with_. And it would be the same for Solona. She would have Alistair, and Wynne, and even Zevran. Max would be at her side, let her cry into him, or pound her fists against him instead of herself. The same was probably true for Alistair. They would get her through it, and she would drag herself through it for them.

At least Leliana would not die this day. She would be fine, if bedridden for several days. As Solona finished her washing, Wynne and Zevran returned with her things, and she dressed gratefully and joined the others for a more formal supper.

* * *

Leliana awoke suddenly. She tried to push herself up, but succeeded only in collapsing back onto the bed when pain speared through her back and deep into her chest, taking her breath from her.

"Leliana! Stop moving, you've been injured!" Hands touched her shoulders, rubbing soothingly until she relaxed. Then Alistair's face came into view. "You're not going to try to spring from the bed again?"

Leliana shook her head slightly, wincing. "No. No, I will stay put." Her voice came out as a whisper. Why was she so weak?

"Well all right, then." He sank to one knee next to the bed, smiling affectionately at her.

"Why do I hurt so?" She coughed, pain spearing through her once more as she tasted iron in the back of her mouth. "What… what happened, Alistair?"

"You remember fighting Jarvia and her guards?" Leliana answered in the affirmative. "Well, Leske had to try one more thing before he did us the courtesy of dying, and threw his dagger. I think it was aimed for Solona, but you were the one it met instead. It managed to find a gap in your armor and sliced into your lung." He shook his head. "For a dying man, he sure had a lot of strength left."

Leliana furrowed her brows. "I… I remember walking up to… to Solona," she whispered, her breath coming in short gasps, "and then I suddenly… couldn't breathe, nor… nor could I stand. I don't remember anything after… after I stumbled."

Alistair nodded. "Solona said you just looked terribly confused before you lost consciousness."

After a pause, she asked, "Is she…?"

He shot to his feet. "Right! Of course! I'll be right back. I was just giving her a break so she could eat something and bathe." He smiled. "She's been at your side for the entire afternoon."

She heard him calling Solona's name as he ran off, and less than a minute later the mage came rushing into the room. Leliana felt a tightness ease in her chest she wasn't even aware of, and tears began to well in her eyes. Sniffing, she shook her head.

"Oh, my darling," Solona breathed, dropping to her knees next to the bed and taking Leliana's hand. She smelled of soap and mushroom stew, in addition to the ever-present tea and honey her breath always seemed to carry. "Oh, my beautiful, wonderful girl."

Leliana laughed through her few tears. Shaking her head a little, she tried to shift. Pain spiked through her, making it impossible to breathe once more. Giving up, she groaned, "Oh, why do I hurt so much?"

Solona smiled, though her brows remained furrowed with concern. "Wynne was able to stop the bleeding and heal the tissue, but you know how it works. You are severely bruised, including your lung. It will be difficult to breathe for a few days. The strangest things will make you hurt. And you lost a lot of blood. You are going to be weak."

"That doesn't… sound fun at _all_ ," Leliana breathed, feeling what Solona meant already. It shouldn't hurt to inhale, nor to talk at full volume, but she couldn't deny that both of those things were true. Whispers were all she could manage.

"But come the day after tomorrow," Solona continued, "Wynne says the best thing for it is to have you moving around a little. The organ thinks it's hurt when it's not, so forcing it through some normal motions after another day of rest is all there is for it. Plus, you have to work up the rest of the blood that settled in your lungs."

"Yes, _definitely_ not fun."

Solona chuckled. "Can I get you anything? It's nearly midnight, but I didn't want to disturb you until you woke."

"Can you… hold me?" A stab of pain, brief but insistent as she inhaled, went through her before she could continue. "I think I would… be more able to sleep… with you so near. You relax me so."

The mage smiled warmly. "I can certainly try. Why don't you drink this first?" She held out a small vial of clear liquid. "It is for pain. You couldn't drink it while you were unconscious, but it is perfectly safe now."

The mage helped her roll to her uninjured left side before tipping the contents slowly into her mouth. Most of it made it in, and within minutes Leliana was able to breathe a little easier. She also felt the less desirable effects – potions to relieve pain always addled the mind some – but didn't care, as she was simply going to sleep with her lover.

When Solona returned from informing Wynne of Leliana's condition, the mage stripped herself down to nothing. Easing Leliana under the blankets, she slid under herself, as well, pulling the bard close.

"Are _you_ all right, Solona?"

"Hmmm?" Leliana felt the hum deep in the mage's chest. It made her absolutely giddy. "Yes, I'm fine, my dear. You know me – it's very difficult to damage me permanently."

"Yes, but not impossible…" Leliana ran her hand over Solona's stomach, causing a hitch to the mage's breath. A low giggle escaped her. Oh, but Solona's silken skin felt so _good_. And the pain was a distant memory. Perhaps if she continued like this she could convince the mage to-

"No, Leli." The mage grabbed her wrist and held it still. "You are _hurt_." There was a laugh in her voice as she said, "And more incorrigible than _I_ am!"

"But-"

"No," the mage insisted, putting pressure on Leliana's raised head, trying to get her to lie back down.

"You are _no_ fun." Sighing dramatically, the bard lay her head upon Solona's shoulder, feeling sleep settle over her like a warm, familiar lover. "I love you," she breathed.

"I love you, too, Leli. So _very_ much."

* * *

The Shaperate was imposing. Solona and Wynne both wore expressions that said the Solstice festival had come early, so happy were they to see so many books in one place. Morrigan, too, was fascinated, though she hid her enthusiasm under a chiding remark about Circle mages, her sideways glare resting squarely on Solona and Wynne. Alistair lost interest quickly, as did Natia, Zevran, and Sten, so the four of them spent the afternoon sparring, Leliana watching, though unable to participate herself.

It would be another few days before she was back up to fighting shape. She had been bedridden for two days instead of one, and only now was feeling well enough to try walking around. She chafed to be moving, but was still coughing up old blood and short of breath from the deep bruising that healing magic could not mend. The bard could not deny that she needed to take it easy.

Meanwhile, the mages went through the books, Solona restraining herself and looking for the Shaper first, who Natia said kept these halls. She found a man near the back, with the ancient scrolls and texts too old to be bound with leather. He had grey – nearly white – hair and beard, and his eyes were turned down in a perpetual look of concern. As she approached him, she wondered what could be troubling him so.

"Ah, Warden, I wondered when you would make your way here. I am the Shaper of Memories."

"Aye," Solona said with a nod. "You are just the one I was hoping to find. But… how do you know who I am?"

"The Grey Wardens' visit has been recorded in the Memories, along with all who accompany you. It is noteworthy, as we do not often have visitors from the surface. The wardens no longer stay in Orzammar, at least not often, instead going directly to battle in the Deep Roads."

"I see. I actually had a great many questions about the wardens."

The Shaper looked genuinely surprised at this. "Did you gain no education from your order's elders?"

The mage's smile was wry. "Firstly, you must know that my order _has_ no elders." He nodded in concession. "And secondly, you may not have heard, but aside from myself and Warden Theirin, our order in Ferelden has been entirely demolished, the day after my Joining, all thanks to… _politics_." She said the word with every bit as much distaste as she felt.

"Ah, this I know well. Politics are responsible for a great many betrayals, bids for power, and deaths. But the Stone persists, outlasting us all." He paused, staring up at Solona placidly, like the very stone of which he spoke. "Very well, Warden. What do you wish to know?"

"The information I have come across so far leads me to believe you may know some of the Grey Wardens' secrets that my comrade and I never learned. Given that we are awaiting the next major offensive from the archdemon, there is certain information we are _desperate_ to know, information which may help us _stop_ the Blight."

He sighed. "While it is true that the wardens and our very own Legion of the Dead have fought side-by-side against the darkspawn, the wardens held their secrets closely. Secrets, we do not have. History, customs, notable figures, all these I have, and will gladly share with you. In fact, I believe your other human colleagues have already found that section in the Memories." Solona followed his gaze to Wynne and Morrigan along the opposite wall. "But secrets I simply do not have access to." He paused, cocking his head to the side. "I cannot tell you why it is that only a Grey Warden may kill the archdemon, only that the only ones who have ever been successful have been wardens."

"Damn," Solona breathed, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. She had so hoped they might gain some new, crucial information about their order. But nothing could be done for it, and she must continue on, hoping the information would reveal itself to them before it was too late. "Very well. That is unfortunate, but perhaps you have information on the other item."

"Which is?"

She furrowed her brows, frowning slightly. "Arcane warriors. I was told in no uncertain terms that your Memories would hold all the information I am missing about this forgotten order."

His eyes flashed a little, the first expression of any emotion she had seen in him. "I do remember coming across a section… I will need time to research it. It was years ago, and I do not remember the details. Why do you need to know about them?"

"I… well, I _am_ one, as it happens. The only one, it seems, otherwise I might know these things myself." He seemed almost excited at this revelation, and it was contagious. Solona found her hopes rising with his expression. "What do you think you'll find, Shaper?"

He shook his head. "I do not know. Go join your friends researching the wardens if you like. I will start my research immediately."

He left her after that, leaving Solona feeling… stalled. She was excited, but he knew nothing yet. Shaking her head, she went in search of Wynne and Morrigan, glad that the Shaper knew of the arcane warriors, but hoping she didn't have to deal with the strange man very often while they were here.

* * *

The needle stung on Solona's bare back.

"You're _sure_ you're okay with this?" Alistair asked, sitting next to her in a matching state of undress.

"I'll be fine. It's not my face, I'm not being held down, and you're not chanting your _bloody_ spells to drain me of energy." She hissed, then, almost to remind herself, "And I _want_ it this time."

"Fair enough," he intoned, hissing his breath out as the dwarf behind him continued with the warrior's own matching tattoo, directly over his spine.

They had learned a great deal of the history of the Grey Wardens, but no secrets, as the Shaper had predicted. Instead, they learned a great deal about the wardens' involvement in the Deep Roads, and in Orzammar itself. Wardens used to make frequent forays into the Deep Roads, taking stock of darkspawn numbers and tracking their activity to discern any patterns that might suggest they had unearthed an archdemon. It was in Orzammar that the wrder received their enchanted weapons and armor: silverite burned into anything that bore the taint, and darkspawn were particularly susceptible to damage by fire – and electricity, Solona had found from experience. Lastly, they learned that Orzammar was where Grey Wardens got tattoos between their shoulders of the Grey Warden standard.

Which was why Solona and Alistair now sat side-by-side, tattoo artists from Dust Town working diligently at their backs. The tattoo would only be an outline of the details, not colored in like the blocky tattoo adorning Natia's face, otherwise it would take more than one sitting to complete. Their dwarven friend had been the one to suggest they come here, for even though these casteless were not respected by the dwarves at large, they did the brand upon all casteless, making for highly-skilled, experienced artists.

Solona was more than happy to oblige. The dwarves' caste system made her incredibly uneasy, and any way she could subvert it was fine with her. Officially, she could not take a stand against a government – Warden Neutrality – except in cases when it stood in direct opposition to her duty during a Blight, something Loghain's Regency _did_. But quiet subversion she could do, and going to get anything done by a casteless artisan instead of a member of one of the official castes definitely fit that description.

Leliana sat before her, watching with a half-smile as the mage winced each time the needle pierced her skin. The bard was doing much better, walking and moving with little difficulty, though sometimes needing a moment to catch her breath or deal with a muscle spasm with sparring. It had been three days since their first visit to the Shaperate.

"Honestly, Solona, you have been through multiple stabbings, cuts, bruises, a fireball, and a de-gloved hand." Leliana smirked as she spoke, her tone deceivingly light. "How is it that _this_ is what brings the mighty to her knees?"

"Hmph," Solona grunted, wincing again as she tried desperately to keep still. "Shut it, woman. Holding still while someone drives a needle into my skin is not the same as battle."

"That is true," Leliana conceded, her eyes dancing. "But given how you and Alistair are carrying on, you would think you had no pain tolerance at all!"

"She's right. I don't think I squirmed that much when I got my brand, and I was eight," Natia chimed in, smirking. "And it was on my _face_." The artist working on Solona had produced Natia's, as the dwarves called the facial tattoos upon the casteless. Solona hoped that would put her in his favor – she did not know how to remove a tattoo, otherwise she might have done so after she had escaped the Circle Tower with Duncan, though she was glad she did not _now_.

She considered that further. At the time, she had _bitterly_ resented the marring of her visage in such a permanent fashion. It had hurt, it had been forced upon her, and all could see it, no matter what she did. She was branded apostate, even within the Circle, and all knew her shame.

But then it began to change. Whenever she saw herself in the mirror, the tattoo was more and more familiar, more and more a part of her, and she had begun to see it as marking her _different_ from the Circle mages who stayed in their cage. She had come to wear it with _pride_. And then more recently her pride had left her – she was no better than those who had stayed. They knew no better; how could they, when they'd been told from birth what a stain upon the Maker's creation they were? She felt pity for them, even as they were likely to look upon her countenance and judge her for her supposed shame.

"Honestly, 'tis a foolish thing to do," Morrigan commented from her place further in the room, jarring Solona out of her reverie. The witch sat reading the book Solona procured for her within the Circle, as she was wont to do from time to time. "Why would you mark your skin so permanently, and with matching symbols?"

"Were it any other symbol, I might agree with you," Alistair began, smiling at Morrigan in a familiar way, which utterly flabbergasted Solona. "But we cannot ever _stop_ being wardens. Even if we absolutely hate each other later in life, we will always be wardens. And it's something our brothers-in-arms had done. There is something… I don't know. Traditions are important."

"It is true, Morrigan," Leliana continued, her smile showing her affection for Alistair. "Traditions have power. They connect people in ways that mere blood cannot do. Rituals, traditions, customs all vary from land to land, family to family, people to people, and in each place they affirm that people's identity."

"I… have never experienced this," the witch admitted, her brows furrowed.

"Yes, you have, Morrigan, if not much for yourself," Solona countered, her heart breaking slightly at the witch's complete non-understanding of some of the most basic things about living in society. "You chant your spells the same way your mother taught you, yes?"

"I suppose…"

"And she taught you how to survive in the wilderness, how to communicate, how to speak."

"Yes…" Morrigan looked dubious.

"Well, imagine this on a grand scale. A family does things the same way their ancestors did them. Or a clan, like the Dalish, playing music so very different from what we're used to, for generations and generations. The way people talk, the ways in which this fishing village makes their hooks versus that fishing village. All the _touching_ you're so critical of is merely an extension of this; it developed over time, and is now the acceptable way to interact with each other."

"And it is not so for every people, either," Leliana cut in. "Many of our customs are not shared from country to country. In Orlais, the people touch far more often, and far more flirtatiously, than in Ferelden, even the commoners. But the qunari do not touch like we do very often at all."

"While not an entire culture, this is something the Grey Wardens did to connect themselves to each other," Alistair cut in, pulling the conversation back to where it had started. "This tattoo is a way to connect us to our fallen comrades. And it's an honor to wear the same mark that they wore upon their skin."

"I suppose… I suppose I can understand that, or at least allow it," Morrigan conceded, nodding over at him. "Though I do not think I would ever mark myself in this way."

"Not least because it's _cold_ down here without anything on," Solona griped, wishing she could somehow wear a shirt during this stunt.

"Solona, I do believe you are a complete _infant_ ," Leliana teased. She got to her feet, dropping a kiss on the mage's cheek before heading for the door of the Dust Town dwelling. "And I think I've seen enough to know I never want one, myself. I think I will go see what trouble I can get to in the market."

"Oh, I'll come with you," Natia called out, jumping to her feet. "You're safer with me there than on your own, anyway, and I've seen enough people get tattooed to know exactly what I'll be missing."

They quickly exited, leaving the wardens to their prickly tattoos, and to the prickly Morrigan for company.

* * *

Leliana looked up from her spot at the table at Tapster's as Solona and Alistair entered from the street, Max at their heels. He gave a booming bark and ran forward to greet the bard, nearly knocking her over in her somewhat weakened state. Laughing, she ruffled his face, momentarily wondering at his ability to bounce back so remarkably. Mabari only imprinted on one person in their whole lives, or at least that was the conventional wisdom. Yet here he was having survived his master and imprinting upon Solona, _and_ on Leliana. Though it was clear that Solona was his ultimate master; were they to go their separate ways, and he had a choice, he would choose the mage. But while the two were together? He lived to serve them both.

Standing again, she greeted her lover with a kiss and an embrace, noting the faint scowl on Solona's face as she was released. "Not a good meeting with Harrowmont, then?"

Solona shook her head. "Not really, no. He… doesn't have enough support to risk calling an early vote. He wants us to retrieve someone for him, before the vote happens in four weeks' time."

Leliana furrowed her brows. "Who must we retrieve?"

Solona sighed. "Their last living Paragon, Branka."

"Branka?!" Leliana turned around to find the man Natia had been drinking with at another table pushing himself up and staggering toward them. He had flaming red hair that put her own to shame, with – of course – a matching, braided beard. Unlike most other dwarven men she had interacted with, his hair was short, but otherwise he was a typical dwarf, if swaying a little from drink.

"I hear ya right? Ya said somethin' about Branka!" His voice was coarse, his tone gruff. As he pushed closer, looking up into Solona's face, Leliana was overcome by the smell of alcohol that seemed to exist in a cloud all around him. She valiantly held back her first instinct to retch, frowning down at him as he essentially pushed her out of the way to get to Solona. "That's my wife, woman! I have a right to know what yer sayin'!"

"Relax, ser dwarf," Solona said, holding her hands in front of her to keep him from getting closer. From the look on her face, Leliana was not the only one to notice the stench clinging to the man. "What is your name, ser?"

"Oghren," he grunted. "Pleased ta meet ya. Now tell me, human!"

"Please, ser. Sit back down – over there – and I will tell you all you wish to know."

Grunting, he reclaimed his seat across from a grinning Natia. Solona sat next to the girl, Leliana next to her, leaving Alistair to take the seat next to the redheaded, drunken dwarf. His lack of a frown worried Leliana – could he truly not smell the man? The rest of their companions pushed closer as Solona began her explanation.

"They're not actually sure that Branka is alive-"

"Well it's been _two years_ since she decided to drag her whole sodding House into the Deep Roads," Oghren cut in. "Tell me somethin' I don't know."

Solona glared across the table at him. " _You_ may know, but everyone else does not. Please hold your tongue until I am done, or you will only delay receiving the information I have." Taking a deep breath, she continued. "Branka is possibly the only living Paragon, if she is alive at all. Harrowmont would need her support in order to be assured the throne. He wants us to venture into the Deep Roads to find her."

Oghren growled a little. "I've been tryin' ta get an expedition together t'find her since not long after she left. But now they need her, they're willin' ta send _you_. Who are ya, anyway?"

"These are the two remaining Grey Wardens in Ferelden," Leliana supplied, indicating Solona and Alistair. "Honestly, I am surprised you did not know, Ser Oghren."

"It's just 'Oghren,' and I heard there were wardens here, I just didn't know they were _you_." He examined each of them with a baleful eye. "Seem a little weak to me. Aren't the wardens supposed to be the only ones who can kill an archdemon?"

Solona sighed. "Yes, Oghren, we are. And we both have more to us than meets the eye, I assure you."

He barked out a laugh. "Ya'd hafta, ta make it in the Deep Roads!"

"Take me with you." The voice was Natia's, cutting off their laughter after Oghren's jibe.

Solona turned to the dwarf. "What?"

"Take me with you, Warden. I've been thinking about what you said the other day and… you're right. I want to be part of something bigger." She paused, looking into her tankard. "I don't know if I want to go to the surface yet, but I used to dream of fighting darkspawn in the Deep Roads as a little girl. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least _try_ now that it doesn't require me to 'die' and become part of the Legion of the Dead."

"Well, I…" Solona looked to Leliana, a question in her eyes.

"Do not look at me, my love. _You_ are apparently the one to have spoken with her before."

Solona looked back to the dwarven woman. "Very well. You can certainly hold your own in a fight, and I spoke truly the other day – I _do_ want you along."

Natia looked away bashfully, smiling to herself as Leliana considered her. "We'll just need to get you some decent armor, Natia."

Oghren harrumphed. "Take _me_ with you, Warden. Branka's my wife, and I can track down there. This Duster is good company, but she's never been in the Deep Roads before. I'm warrior caste: I've been down there more than anyone else available t'ya."

Solona just stared at him for a moment. Leliana decided to interfere before the mage insulted the dwarf. "Perhaps he is right, Solona. It has been incredibly helpful to have Natia as our guide in the city. It follows that it would be helpful to have a guide in the Deep Roads, particularly one so practiced at navigating down there. We really would not know what we were doing."

Natia nodded. "He _is_ right, as much as I know you don't want his company."

"Hey!"

The dwarven woman snorted. "What do you expect, Oghren? You pushed your way to drench the Warden-Commander in your stench, and then you interrupt and insult, and now they don't want your company. Maybe if you learned a few manners, you'd have a better time of it." She lifted her tankard in a mock-toast before draining the rest of it.

He grumbled unintelligibly in answer, finally grunting and turning back to Solona. "Fine. I'll try to watch my manners. But if ya tell me I can't drink, I'm drawin' the line."

Solona smirked. "Very well, Oghren, Natia." She held out a hand to each of them, an eyebrow raised. "Welcome to our merry band of cutthroats."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N from edits: Just a heads up that, while the group is in Orzammar, there is a side fic called Graphic Dedication, written by Raven Sinead. It is graphic, so if that's not your thing, don't worry about reading it. I just wanted to bring it to your attention.


	39. Broodmother...

Zevran threw the knife he kept at the small of his back, hitting the emissary square in the face. It howled, staggering back and allowing the elf to run up and gut it with one of his long daggers. Straightening even as the creature hit the ground, Zevran turned to survey the battle.

They had been almost constantly fighting darkspawn for nearly a week, if he was counting the passage of time correctly. They only ever got a few hours' sleep at a time, the wardens' presence attracting the fiends just as they themselves were drawn to the beasts. The lack of a full night's rest, coupled with the near-complete darkness, made for difficulty in marking the passage of time. Oghren assured them it was indeed about a week, however, and while Zevran was not a fan of the stinking, drunken mess of a warrior, he could not deny that the dwarf clearly knew his way around in these dark, foreboding passages.

They traveled with Wynne in the center, her staff lit as dimly as she could manage so as not to ruin their eyes in the dark. They also did not wish to make themselves more visible to the darkspawn, who were accustomed to navigating in the inky darkness. The raw lyrium deposits in the walls glowed, but that was the only natural source of light down here, and after a while, the oppressive darkness began to take its toll. Everyone was on edge, fighting more savagely than normal, bickering, with very little conversation over meals. Zevran did not blame them – the darkness was unnerving, even to himself and Leliana, who were accustomed to moving in shadows. The former bard, at least, fared better than Solona, who was positively _cranky_ , like a tired and hungry toddler at all times.

Zevran himself did just fine, though he certainly _preferred_ the sunlight and its warmth. He was from a warm, dry place, not this cold, dank, moist place where mushrooms and molds grew as often as not. Wynne seemed to be holding up well enough, though he was distressed that she had to sleep on the unyielding stone. Even with a bedroll spread over it, it was not very comfortable, and with her joints being somewhat sensitive to the cold and the damp, she was having an uncomfortable time of it, to be sure. He made sure she had wine to drink when they stopped to rest, though, and did all else he could to ease her discomfort. She was not all _that_ old, but he could not deny that she was _not_ a spry young maiden in her prime, either.

The biggest surprise during their time in the Deep Roads was the bonding that happened between Solona and Oghren, especially given that the mage clearly did not prefer his company at the outset. But between Oghren's immunity to most magic and his Berserker abilities, he was literally the _best_ fighting companion Solona could hope for. If she shot lightning toward him accidentally, it did nothing but hit his opponents, who he could then decapitate. Giving into his Berserker instincts made him a match for her in speed as well, as long as she was not flat-out running, and together they weaved their way through a pack of darkspawn. They were the only ones not affected by the havoc Solona's magic wreake; together, they could take down almost anyone or anything.

He watched them finish off the latest batch of darkspawn now, Solona sending a huge plume of white-hot flame toward an ogre. It bellowed, rearing back and trying to block its face from the fire, only to howl as Oghren smashed his razor-sharp axe – enchanted to keep its edge – right into the ogre's foot, severing several of its toes. The creature knocked the dwarf away from itself, and he flew several feet to land on his back – laughing. Solona took advantage of the beast's distraction, however, running forward far more quickly than should be allowed and slashing her own sword, dancing with electricity, across its belly. Keeping a steady flame upon it, she slashed again, cooking its entrails even as they spilled forth. The creature was quickly reduced to a pile of smoldering flesh upon the stone.

"You know," Zevran began as he retrieved his thrown knife and cleaned it, "it is actually a good thing that darkspawn flesh smells so unappealing when it burns."

Solona turned, regarding him as she sheathed her perpetually clean blade. "Oh?" Her eyes were once again their normal color, and her voice sounded like it did when she first spoke to him.

He nodded. "Indeed. It would make me exceedingly uncomfortable if the smell of darkspawn made my mouth water out of hunger. Have you noticed that burning human flesh tends to smell of roast pork?" He sheathed his blades.

She cocked her head to the side. "No, I never noticed. Now I'll have to pay attention and remember to use flame the next time some group of bandits tries to take us."

"We should move on," Sten rumbled, coming up behind her with his own blade still grasped in one hand. "We do not know if they will be drawn to so much death."

"You're right, of course," Solona sighed, indicating that he should take the lead. They formed back up in their ragged line, Max joining the Qunari up front, and began moving once more, Oghren in the lead. He said they were getting close to the Dead Trenches; something about the way the stone was carved and the smell of it. Zevran had a hard time believing the dwarf, but again could not deny that they kept finding small traces of Branka's party as they traveled. And they _had_ passed through Ortan Thaig the day before, just as the dwarven warrior had predicted.

"If you want some fresh meat tonight, I think we're comin' up on a deepstalker nest," Oghren gruffed.

"Deepstalker?" Solona asked.

"The little things with the teeth we've run into a few times. If you don't think too hard about what they looked like alive, they're decent eatin'."

"Well, we certainly won't have to try hard. I never realized how dark it would be down here," Natia chimed in. The dwarf had proven herself a valuable asset, dealing death and destruction with her long knives. Zevran liked the girl's spirit, and knew that if he were not – happily – spoken for, he would definitely have tried to seduce her. As it was, she was left to Oghren's clumsy advances. The male dwarf had been so far unsuccessful.

Oghren grunted a laugh. "Spend your whole life in Dust Town, and you never figured how dark the Deep Roads would be?"

"They don't let casteless down here, Oghren," she sighed.

He snorted. "They also don't let casteless bear weapons. Fat lot of good _that_ ever did at keeping you from it," he replied, indicating the long knives she wore at her belt.

"They do _bicker_ like a couple, don't they?" Wynne noted.

Zevran chuckled quietly, taking her hand in his. "Indeed, they do. But I do not think they are right for each other. Natia is far more woman than Oghren can handle."

"Perhaps you are right. And besides, he is supposed to be married to this Paragon we are after, yes? I wonder why she took her whole House and not him?"

Zevran shrugged. "Perhaps it was the stench?"

"Oh, you are a wicked man!" Wynne proclaimed, smacking his arm lightly.

"Wicked? You _wound_ me, Wynne. It is _you_ that are the wicked one," he quipped, getting another chuckle from her as they continued through the tunnel.

* * *

"Are you all right, Morrigan?"

The witch gave Alistair a baleful look. They sat at watch together, allowing the other eight of their party some rest. "Why do you prattle on like a fishwife about my welfare?"

He just rolled his eyes. As far as acid responses went, that one was relatively tame. "You've just been quiet the last few days. And I've noticed you haven't gotten much sleep."

Her glare grew more malevolent. "Why are you hounding me so? I did not _ask_ for your scrutiny!"

He held out his hands in placation. "Relax, Morrigan! I didn't mean anything by it! It's uncomfortable for all of us down here, but everyone else has someone to check on them except you, so I thought I'd volunteer to poke the hornet's nest, as it were."

Her frown softened somewhat. "I am fine," she clipped, turning away from the templar once more in the dim light of the cave. Finding her feet, she walked away from him, pacing the unyielding stone in a way that reminded him of a caged animal. They had been worried about cooking food with no wood around to burn, but Oghren had informed them that there was a crumbling stone that was readily available in the Deep Roads that actually burned like wood once set aflame. Natia said it was what the casteless used in their own hearths in Dust Town. It was a small flame, producing a great deal of heat with little light, but the trade-off was the smell: it stank of rotten eggs as it burned. Alistair had thought to himself that it was a good thing the darkspawn stank so much on their own, or they would surely draw them just by the stink of their fires.

Now they were at watch, however, and the only light was from the lyrium in the walls of the cavern. Alistair watched Morrigan pacing for a few more minutes before finally getting up and going to her. Matching her stride, he walked next to her for a moment.

Her eyes slid toward him. "What are you doing?"

"I thought we were patrolling," he answered, keeping his tone light. "Isn't that what you were doing?"

"I feel _trapped_ here," she muttered, turning from him.

"I agree." He felt a shiver travel down his spine. "I grew up in a castle of stone walls, but the darkness is… oppressive. Like you can feel the walls pushing in on you."

He saw Morrigan shudder, a black silhouette against the dark backdrop. She reached up and took two handfuls of her hair, twisting her body before dropping into a crouch, keeping hold upon her hair. Running forward, he knelt in front of her.

"Morrigan! What's wrong?!"

"The walls are pushing in, and I cannot breathe," she hissed, starting to hyperventilate.

"Morrigan," he said sternly. "I need you to relax. You're going to pass out if you keep this up!" His volume rose, but he paid it no mind.

He pried her hands out of her hair, looking down into shining eyes, wide with panic. "I'm going to count to three, Morrigan, and I need you to force yourself to breathe with my counting." She looked away and began to shake her head, but he grabbed her chin and directed her gaze back to him. "No, don't look at the cave. Just look at me and breathe."

He began counting, one-two-three, over and over, and at first it did absolutely nothing. But after a few attempts, he got her gaze to remain on his, and then she started to breathe, haltingly at first, but after a few inhales and exhales it evened out. He felt her stop shaking so much, and when he tried standing up with her shoulders in his hands, she followed him.

"There, that's better," he said, smiling down into her face.

"I… let me go." She pulled away suddenly, turning and leaving him standing there as she walked away.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" he called, running after her. Grabbing her shoulder, he pulled her around. "What the hell was that all about?"

"This place is _suffocating_ ," she hissed.

"Let's not start this again, Morrigan. We're stuck here, we can't go back."

"And that is what is so despicable! I cannot escape this _prison_!"

Taking a risk, he put his hand to her cheek to get her to look up at him again. Thinking quickly, he seized on the first thing that came to mind. "That's why you like changing your form so much, isn't it?"

She allowed the intimate touch, staring up into his eyes, completely surprising the warden. Her claustrophobia seemed to be better when she was focusing on him and not the oppressive stone walls. "I… yes. The human form is not so strong as the animals of the forest. I longed for their speed, their abilities, and so I studied them until I could _be_ them."

Releasing her cheek, he lowered his hand to her arm, mirroring it with the other hand as well, caressing the skin over the sinewy muscles. This has the advantage of putting a little distance between them; he did not want to scare her off, not when she was opening up, vulnerable, for the first time. "You know," he began, smiling sheepishly, "sometimes I'm incredibly jealous of your upbringing out in the Wilds."

Morrigan scoffed. "Jealous of a childhood with Flemeth? Of running from templars and escaping into the woods when Mother decided she would sate her lusts with a captured Chasind man?"

"Perhaps not those bits, no," Alistair admitted, crining. "And Flemeth didn't strike me as a rousing conversationalist."

"Indeed. There were often days at a time that we did not speak with each other. What need is there when the routine over meals does not change, and our other business is our own?"

Finally releasing the witch completely, Alistair took a small step back, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. "But you had the freedom to leave, to have business of your own. I spent my childhood motherless in the arl's keep, watching after his horses and speaking with him when commanded. He was kind, don't get me wrong, but it was a childhood of rules. I could never just… run away, the way I imagine you did. If I tried, the skin would have been flayed from my back as soon as I reappeared."

Morrigan considered him, seemingly-unconsciously closing the small space he had created between them. "That sounds… insufferable." She reached up, just brushing his cheek with the pads of her fingers. They were like ice, and yet it burned for several moments where they had ghosted over his skin. "To not have the freedom to simply come and go in your own residence?"

"It was worse in the Chantry," Alistair whispered, Morrigan's presence seeming to rob him of his volume. And his ability to move. "I couldn't even act like a boy there. I understand the need for a conservative life of reservation and abstinence when devoted to the Maker, but I didn't choose it, and I feel _that_ makes all the difference." He inhaled, taking in Morrigan's scent, earth mixed with jasmine. "It was too… quiet. And there were even more rules to follow. Same for the templars. I only joined because I didn't know what else to do with myself. I didn't know what it was like to mostly do as I pleased until I was recruited into the Grey Wardens. Duncan… well, he gave me my freedom, in a way."

Morrigan's brows knit as she looked up into his eyes, her hand now resting on his chest. "Your story sounds remarkably like the story Solona tells about her own upbringing in the Circle."

He shrugged. The fingers of her other hand brushed near his fingers at their sides as he answered her, nearly distracting him from his answer. "The Chantry has many rules, whether they're for the Circle of Magi, the Templar Order, or the initiates and devotees in the houses of worship."

Alistair paused, furrowing his brow. He could smell her even more strongly now, cinnamon and coffee and mixing with the earth and jasmine. He finally took the plunge and grasped at her floating fingers. Morrigan seemed to come to herself at that moment, dropping her hands and putting the distance between them once more. He cursed himself for a fool as she turned to resume her post.

"Morrigan…"

She turned, cocking her head to the side. "You are a foolhardy boy at times, Alistair. Come join me at our post. You… were right, to distract me away from the closeness of the walls."

"You're welcome," he quipped, even though she had not actually thanked him. He smiled as he followed her, laughing a little as her statement – not an outright rejection, but more of a "not _now_ " – reminded him of something. "You know, I used to sit in the chapel and _scream_ bloody murder until the brothers came running to see what had happened? I told them I was 'just checking'. Oh, how they hated me there."

She smirked, raising an eyebrow. "Now _that_ is something Flemeth would have flayed me alive for. One rule of the Wilds that one _always_ followed: do not draw attention to yourself, otherwise Chasind or templars would have an easier time of finding you."

"I can imagine."

"I had my moments of vanity and precociousness as a child," Morrigan offered, turning to face Alistair with a look he could not identify. Was it a smile? Was she apologetic? Was it the look she'd give right before delivering a tongue-lashing? Somehow, it was all of these expressions at once. It was… unsettling. It made his heart pound momentarily.

"Oh?" He came back to her side, resuming his seat and looking up at her as she continued to stand before him. "Do tell."

"I… I recall the first time I crept beyond the edge of the Wilds. I did so in animal form, remaining in the shadows and watching these strange townsfolk from afar." She returned to his side, seating herself next to him, far closer than normal, but not touching as they had before. "I happened upon a noblewoman by her carriage, adorned in sparkling garments the likes of which I had never before seen. I was _dazzled_. This, to me, seemed what true wealth and beauty must be."

"What happened?"

"I snuck up, unnoticed, and stole a hand mirror from her carriage. 'Twas encrusted in gold and crystalline gemstones and I _hugged_ it to my chest in delight as I sped back into the Wilds. But when I returned, Flemeth was _furious_ with me. I was a child and had not yet come into my full power, and I had risked discovery for the sake of a pretty bauble. To teach me a lesson Flemeth took the mirror and smashed it upon the ground. I was heartbroken."

He furrowed his brows. "But… you were just a child! Surely-"

"I _was_ a child, and a foolish one. She was right to break me of my fascination. Beauty and love are futile and have no meaning, particularly alone in the Wilds. _Survival_ has meaning. _Power_ has meaning." She paused, eyes meeting his once more. "Without those lessons I would not be where I am today, as difficult as they might have been to learn."

Alistair's frown deepened. He knew there was a double meaning here, but he couldn't quite suss it out in the moment. "They made you stronger, these lessons?"

"They did indeed," she replied, turning away again.

"I see. But… you accept my help. Is that a lesson she taught you, as well? I thought she taught you to be self-sufficient."

Morrigan considered his query for what seemed a long time before finally speaking. "I am finding that, as old and wise as Flemeth is, she does not know _everything_. In this lesson, however, I do believe she was correct."

Their conversation stopped after that, and Alistair was left stewing in very conflicting feelings until it was time to awaken Solona and Max for their watch.

* * *

It was two more days before they happened upon Hespith.

That morning they began to notice growths along the walls, the likes of which Leliana remembered from the demon-infested Circle Tower. Max whined whenever he had to pass near one, and over time they became larger and more numerous.

Then something inside one of the growths _moved_.

Leliana had screamed, cutting it off as quickly as she could. In the silence after, they had heard a slithering squelch. When asked, Oghren had said he had no idea what it was. Solona and Alistair were both _extremely_ on edge, claiming the taint was present in whatever was moving. When it moved again, Leliana yelped and jumped away, eliciting a sharp, derisive laugh from Morrigan.

Solona had hushed them. Her demeanor reminded Leliana of a dog about to attack. As she had reached for her lover's hand, hoping to calm her down, the mage's eyes had suddenly begun to glow, and then flame shot from her palm. A high, keening wail escaped the fleshy pod as whatever was inside burned to a crisp.

They hard burned many fleshy pods since.

Leliana's discomfort only increased, watching her lover become more and more anxious as they traveled through the tunnels. Then, the voice had started. They followed it, burning anything that moved in those fleshy tubules as they went, not daring to examine what might remain. After a while, the voice became intelligible, running a shiver down Leliana's spine at what she was hearing described.

Hunger. Starvation. Capture. Cannibalism. Violation.

They turned a corner, and there was the source of the sick little rhyme: a dwarf, clearly a tainted ghoul, rocking back and forth next to an enormous fleshy pod on the wall.

Oghren spoke up first. "Hey, shut up, will ya?!"

The creature looked up, blinking as if coming out of a trance. Leliana could not suppress a shudder as she looked into that tortured face.

"Do you have a name?" Wynne asked her, retaining her poise despite their situation. Leliana was shamed at the elder woman's grace under such extraordinary and horrifying circumstances.

"Hespith…"

She gave her name, spoke of Branka, of her House. She told of how she and Branka had been lovers until the Paragon had committed her atrocious crimes. So fixated upon the conversation were they that they did not notice the increased activity in the pod behind the ghoulish dwarf.

Not until an arm clawed its way out, grasping Hespith by the hair.

Leliana screamed again. But hers was not the only one. Oghren's axe came up and then down, severing the arm, freeing its prey. Hespith immediately began running, her bare feet slapping against the stone. Solona sent a burst of flame forth, cooking a half-emerged darkspawn hurlock in its tracks.

Then silence reigned, punctuated only by harsh breathing. Alistair was the first to move, examining the charred remains of the darkspawn they had killed. "So this is how they come to be… Do you think the wardens know? I've never heard of anything like this, but it could be one of the secrets they hadn't yet shared with us."

Solona, her entire body tense, shook her head once. "I don't care. Whatever this thing ahead is that rakes its fingers over my skull, it feels like hammers in my head, and it needs to end. I cannot… I cannot abide this any longer, Alistair!"

The desperation in her voice tugged upon Leliana's heart. She desperately wished to comfort her lover, but no loving touch could rid the warden of the discomfort that plagued her.

Alistair, for his part, simply nodded before strapping his shield into place and pulling his sword. "Agreed. C'mon, everyone, let's go!" He set off at a run, shouting for Hespith to return.

It was the junior warden's first time taking command of the group. And it was Solona's first time being so overwhelmed that she asked him to. Leliana tried to run forward to her lover, tried to take her hand, tried to speak with her, but the mage burst into a sprint, catching up to her fellow warden, her staff at the ready. Worried, Leliana ran after them, trusting her companions to follow. The bard was not accustomed to Solona being so preoccupied by _anything_ that she would ignore her.

"Dammit woman!" Oghren called after a few minutes of listening to Hespith's panted descriptions of what Branka had done. "Will you shut _up_?!"

"She's not in her right mind, Oghren," Natia replied, breathing hard as the two of them struggled to keep up with their longer-legged companions. "Give her a break. I'd be traumatized, too, if I had to watch what she did. At the behest of my lover, no less." She paused. "Sorry about your wife."

"Shut yer trap, Natia," he growled, hefting his axe with a yell and putting on a burst of speed, passing Leliana as he caught up to the wardens.

Those ahead of her suddenly stopped. She nearly bowled them over as she tried to stop in time. Panting, looked up to see…

Teats. Tentacles. Sallow flesh. Dark, drooping eyes upon a small, bald head. Leliana's feet squelched on the floor, and when she looked down, she saw black sludge welling around their boots.

"Broodmother," they heard Hespith murmur. Turning her head, Leliana caught a glimpse of the dwarf up on a ledge behind the beast.

It was only a glimpse because, at that moment, the beast roared. Its tentacles sprang to life, reaching for them as its face contorted in rage. This was Laryn. This was what the darkspawn turned her into. _Broodmother_. This creature was responsible for the breeding of more darkspawn…

A cry of terror welled up from some primal place Leliana did not know she possessed. She reached for an arrow, her bow already in her hand, and let fly, right at the creature's face. It didn't reach its mark, however; a tentacle moved in front of the thing's face and caught the arrow instead. A roar sounded as some of the tentacles disappeared. The earth shook.

"Run," Morrigan whispered.

"What?" someone asked.

Alistair answered at the top of his lungs. "Scatter!"

He jumped just as a tentacle burst from the ground where he had been standing.

Someone had the good sense to light their staff fully, and then the other mages followed suit, illuminating a landscape of black ooze. Distantly, as she ran, Leliana realized that it smelled like human waste, but worse. The broodmother was not moving. _She probably can't move. She must sit in her own waste and produce these monsters…_

Minutes went by with all of them running through the cavernous room, trying to stop and find a perch long enough to send a projectile at the monstrous creature. But each time Leliana was able to stop and draw a bead on the thing, a tentacle appeared near enough to block her arrow before reaching for her. And looking around the room, that appeared to be the situation for everyone. Only the mages were able to send any kind of spell effectively before having to move on.

Once or twice, the bard saw unmoving tentacles on the ground, clearly severed by Sten or Oghren, the only two powerful enough to accomplish such a feat. Others she found burnt to a crisp or frozen solid, clearly the work of one of the mages. But Leliana could not stop to see who had managed these small victories. She could only stop for a moment or two at a time to try to catch her breath, otherwise she would be taken by one of those grasping tentacles. She did not think they would be pleasant wrapped around her, touching her skin where it was exposed.

"'Ware the entrance! Darkspawn approach!"

She did not know who shouted the warning, but she was grateful, as the entrance was where she had chosen to take just a moment and try to aim her shaking, watery arms at the broodmother. Turning, she was able to jump out of the way just as a sword slashed through the air. Sending an arrow its way, Leliana was moving once more, running into the middle of the room.

The darkspawn offered a respite from the tentacles, as the broodmother seemed reluctant to kill her brethren. _Her children_ , Leliana reminded herself, almost retching in disgust at the idea. The reaching tentacles ceased, but Leliana and the others were still unable to turn their attention to the broodmother itself, as they were now swarmed by many times their number in darkspawn. Putting her last arrow into a hurlock's face, she slung her bow and drew her short sword and a long dagger. Running up behind the genlock Natia now faced, she hamstrung it, allowing the short, stout woman to gut the thing with a brief nod of thanks. Then they were both off again, each avoiding a blow from another of the tainted creatures.

This went on for what felt like hours but was likely only a few minutes. She ran and stabbed, slashing a leg or putting her dagger in a back, crippling others' opponents as seemingly endless waves of darkspawn descended upon them. She had no time to think about her aching body, her blood-soaked grip on her weapons, the fact that she couldn't quite feeling her fingertips, or just _what_ it was she kept stepping in, almost slipping and falling at times. She simply ran, raising her weapons to deal death and destruction at every opportunity she saw.

Then, after moments without end, the darkspawn were all dead upon the ground. Leliana almost dropped her weapons in relief, but a bellowing roar from the other side of the room kept her focus. _Shit. I have no arrows…_

She was spared having to come up with a solution by a tentacle bursting from the ground directly in front of her. Screaming, she tried to dodge it, but she was fatigued, and was not fast enough to evade it. Crushing strength took hold of her, squeezing down upon her middle. Dropping her sword, she drove her dagger in as deep as it would go. Or, at least, she tried to, but the tentacle was slick, and the knife barely cut it before it slid out of her weakening grip. The sticky goo burned the skin on her hands as she beat against it, trying desperately to claw her way out of the tentacle's grip so she could _breathe_. Blackness was already encroaching upon her vision, her aching, exhausted body unable to do a thing if it could not take in breath.

" _Leliana!"_

The only thing the bard could make out for a moment were two burning points of light. Her vision cleared in time to see Solona opened one palm, a fireball burning there. The other hand did the same, and then the arcane warrior did something the bard had never seen before: her entire body was suddenly engulfed in a white-hot flame. Solona turned, releasing a primal roar the likes of which Leliana was sure a human could not produce, and sped for the broodmother itself. The beast roared back, vomiting some burning acid at the mage. But it could not touch her, sizzling out of existence the moment it hit the fireball running for it, eyes burning even brighter than the flame.

Screaming, Solona sent plumes of flame toward the creature, causing it to rear back as it shrieked in pain. The tentacle constricting Leliana released her, and she fell in the mud and muck, unmindful of the filth as she _finally_ was able to breathe, the black immediately retreating. Taking in great gulps of air, she looked back up to see a screaming fireball – _Maker, that's Solona_ – jumping at the broodmother, the creature's tentacles unable to find purchase on the immolating mage.

It was over quickly. Solona scorched every inch of skin she could reach, striking the monster with both fists. And when the broodmother opened its mouth to vomit on the mage once more, she shot a fireball straight in, ending its life with a sizzling cry.

Solona jumped from the monster, screaming in rage as she turned, possibly seeking more foes. When she saw none, the fire abated, her eyes slowly losing their glow. She stood completely naked, white hair entirely gone from her head. Her eyebrows and even her sex were completely bare from the flame that had engulfed her. But her dark skin was pristine as ever. Panting her breaths, she looked around a moment, running to Leliana's side when her eyes finally found the bard.

"Are you-"

The room began to shake. Everyone looked around. "What-" Leliana began from her place on the squelching ground, but the shaking had intensified.

Then the ceiling began to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another cliffhanger. I am the worst! But I think you'll like the next chapter...
> 
> My descriptions of the Deep Roads and the broodmother probably resemble Snafu1000's own description, though told from a different viewpoint. This is probably because I found her descriptions to be so captivating. They were so real, and then became canon for me. I tried not to copy, but just take hers as inspiration. I apologize to anyone who might take offense to this.
> 
> I figured the broodmother would be an unbearable presence to the wardens. It is the maker of the darkspawn, the ultimate bearer of the taint outside of the archdemon (whose presence I have not forgotten, don't worry).
> 
> Ok, I think that's it. Hope you enjoyed this!


	40. Interlude II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated notes: Thar be smut ahead! I've actually become much more comfortable with this. This was the first hetero scene I ever wrote, so I thought I'd leave the original notes for your entertainment.

 

Alistair tried to move his leg, but a deep, aching pain ripped up from his ankle and through his leg, all the way to his thigh. He cried out, reaching for it, only to discover his movement hampered by his shield, still strapped to his left arm. The arm itself was surprisingly intact, however, making the quick release of the strap and removal of his arm an easy task. Unfortunately, when he could reach for his leg once more, he found a very large rock wedged against his ankle. Testing with his other foot, he took a deep breath and pushed with all his might, grunting with pain as he pulled his trapped foot free.

Getting to his feet, Alistair pulled his shield from the rocks before surveying his surroundings. It was almost completely dark and he could barely see anything. His pack was still securely fastened to his back, though, so that was a good thing, because it appeared that the entrance to the broodmother's lair had caved in. Judging by what little he could see in the ever-present glow from the lyrium veins in the walls, he was not in the lair itself, but rather had managed to run out of the broodmother's chamber before the falling rocks caught up to him. This was good, as he wasn't crushed. But it was bad, because he appeared to be alone, was injured, and had no idea who else had survived.

But then he faintly heard a shouting voice, sounding like Solona. "Alistair!" he heard it call, and he hobbled as close to the pile of rocks spilling from the entrance as he could. "Alistair! Where are you?! Are you all right?"

"Solona!" he called back, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Solona, I'm okay!" A faint groan sounded behind him, and he whipped his head around to see a faint silhouette moving in the dark. The figure stirred again and he recognized the voice.

"Morrigan?"

Solona's voice came to him through the rocks once more. "Alistair, thank the Maker! Is Morrigan with you? Everyone else is accounted for."

He hobbled over to the moaning lump on the ground, not able to put much weight on his injured leg. "Morrigan, are you awake?" The witch gave no response, but she appeared to be only unconscious and not obviously hurt.

Turning to the rock fall, he answered at a shout. "I have Morrigan! She is alive!"

"Hang on, Alistair! We'll dig through to you!" A pause. "It might take a while…"

Smirking, he turned back to Morrigan. Kneeling, he peered toward her face once more. The witch suddenly sat forward, thrusting an arm out to hit him in the face. He fell back with a cry, cursing when his foot hit the ground, causing a great pain to shoot up his leg and into his hip once more.

"Ack! Maker! Morrigan, it's me!"

"A- Alistair?"

"Yes! Are you hurt?"

"I… I am undamaged." He saw her silhouette move in the gloom, and then she was near him. "Why were you hovering over me so?"

He furrowed his brows. "You were groaning, so I came to check on you." He winced, stretching for his leg. Maker, but it hurt.

She looked about for a moment, then got up and made her way to the cave-in. "We are trapped." She turned, and he heard a sharp intake of breath. "We are trapped, and they are on the other side." Her voice picked up in pitch.

"Maker damn it all… Morrigan, you need to stay calm!" He got back to his feet, hobbling over to her. He could hear her breathing speeding up. He really hoped they could avoid a repeat of the other night. "They're fine, but my leg is broken and I can't keep us _both_ from panicking!" He reached her, taking her shoulders for support.

"I… I… I need light, Alistair. My staff… I do not know where it is. I need _light_ …"

He shook her gently, succeeding in getting her eyes to focus on his once more. "We'll find the stone, all right? We'll make a fire. Just help me along."

Ten minutes of Morrigan trying not to hyperventilate later, they had a small fire lit. Alistair unslung his pack, watching Morrigan sitting by the fire out of the corner of his eyes. "Morrigan, will you set out my bedroll? It'll be a lot more comfortable to sit on than the ground while we wait. Who knows how long it will take them to get through?"

She set to the task with no argument, which was mildly surprising. But something told him that having a task, any task, to concentrate on helped her claustrophobia from rising into full-blown panic. As he continued to monitor her, he stripped out of his armor. He knew his leg was broken, he could feel the bone scraping when he tried to put weight on it, but he wouldn't be able to do anything about it with the armor in the way. Luckily, he'd been doing this every day for months now, so it only took a few minutes before all the pieces were in a pile on the floor.

Easing himself down, Alistair reached for the leg of his trousers, but pulling them over his calf from the ankle was simply not going to happen. Sighing, he looked up at Morrigan.

"They have to come off," he told her. She looked up from here she was working, confusion clearly written on her face in the low light. "My leg is broken, and I need my trousers off to examine it properly."

"And you are telling me because…?"

"I… well, _most_ women wouldn't like a man to just undress in front of them with no warning."

Resuming her work, she intoned, "We have already discussed that I am not 'most women,' Alistair."

Rolling his eyes, he undid the ties at his beltline and eased his trousers down, pulling them off his legs as delicately as possible, boots and all. A huge bruise was revealed to him, but no blood. Probing it gently with his fingers, he announced, "It's broken, but doesn't appear to need setting. I guess my greaves did their job. I just need to splint it to keep it steady. Unless… Morrigan, how much healing magic _have_ you learned?"

Coming to his side with a potion from his pack, she knelt, seemingly-unmindful of his half-naked state. "Not enough to heal a broken bone. As if I would sit through lessons with _Wynne_ long enough to learn anatomy…"

He smirked. He liked Wynne, he really did. He was happy for her and Zevran, as unlikely a couple as they made. But she just reminded him too much of the sisters in the Chantry. He knew exactly what it was like to sit and be lectured by _them_ for hours on end. He couldn't imagine how intolerable that would be for someone like Morrigan.

"Well, fine. I need a splint, then, to keep it from getting worse until Wynne can do her magic. Any ideas?" He pulled his trousers back on, fastening them loosely for the time being.

"Yes, actually. But first, you should drink this. It is for pain." The witch was on her feet in a flash, retrieving something by the rockslide before returning to his side. In her hand, she carried what looked like part of her staff. "'Twas smashed by the rocks, as far as I can tell. Lay out your leg, and I shall bind it for you."

"I can do it," he began, the pain already beginning to subside from the potion, but stopped at the look he received from the witch. It told him in no uncertain terms terms to shut it. Pulling a sash from her own backpack, now lying next to his by their small fire, the witch worked quickly, smoothing the rough ends out with on the rocks before lashing his knee and ankle to the length of timber.

"'Tis as good a job as I can perform. You may shift and move without stressing the break further, but do not walk on it. This should hold until Wynne can heal you properly."

"At least we know they're alive." He was starting to feel the less pleasant side effects of the pain relief. His head swam a little, and he felt like he might be sick before his stomach finally settled and he just felt a little drunk instead.

"That is not surprising… if neither a dragon nor that _creature_ could kill them, then I hardly think a cave-in would be the thing to succeed."

Alistair shuddered to remember. "Maker, that thing. She called it a broodmother?"

"Yes. If only the Chantry knew that darkspawn originated with that abomination than in the black city…"

His head swam again as he remembered Hespith's awful rhyme. "Do you think, if they'd caught us, they would have turned the women into-"

"Cease your prattle, Alistair!"

He was momentarily taken aback by her reaction. He thought they were building a rapport, having pleasant conversations! And she was getting close the other day. She'd been his shadow! And he was glad for it – she was so _pretty_. Why had he never noticed how pretty she was before? Those pouting lips, the dark hair framing her pale face, her cat-like eyes surrounded by long, dark lashes…

But then it clicked into place just _what_ he was suggesting the darkspawn would do to _her_ , and he felt like a complete ass. He also suddenly felt stone-cold sober. She began to move away, but he caught her hand, trying to keep her next to him. He rather liked her so near him.

"Wait! I'm sorry, Morrigan. I wasn't thinking!"

"Let go, Alistair-"

"No. It's just the two of us, you don't get to just walk away. Please let me apologize properly."

He gave a final tug, and she fell back, landing on her rump before overbalancing and falling into his chest. Catching her in his arm, he apologized profusely. His judgment was just _off_ today – possibly because of the potion he'd taken. Right. Maybe not so sober…

But then something happened he never would have expected. Looking up into his eyes, Morrigan reached up and rested her fingertips against his cheek. They ruffled against the whiskers there – he had not shaved in well over a week – but he could still feel their heat. His breathe hitched as her face got nearer, the fingers moving to bury themselves in his lengthening hair. His head swam a little, and he wasn't sure what to do, but then she was kissing him and it really didn't matter anymore.

Her lips felt like fire against his, tentative as that first kiss was. Pulling back, she had a most curious expression, halfway between desire and panic. Acting before either of them had time to think about it, Alistair lowered his face again, capturing her lips with his as he gathered her closer to him.

* * *

Morrigan knew exactly why she kissed Alistair. After he suggested that she might turn into one of those… _creatures_ they had just fought, coupled with the feeling of the walls closing in, she thought she might crawl out of her skin. The other night she had come very close to this, almost giving in to her desire for the fool of a warden. He was too idealistic. She could not want him. And yet she did. The feel of him against her when she fell into him was too much for her frayed nerves. She could no longer deny that he felt _good_. He had proven himself safe, helping her time and again when she had not asked for it, but desperately _needed_ it. Even with his leg broken, Alistair managed to keep her panic from rising.

The want she had been trying to suppress for weeks had welled up deep within her, and she had tried to relieve some of the pressure by giving in just a little. Resting against him, she felt the subtle movements of his muscles under his tunic, the power residing in his arm as it rested loosely around her. She had reached up and touched his face, feeling his warm skin under hers, the rough feel of the bristly shorts hairs on his cheek against the very tips of her fingers sending a shiver down her spine.

Morrigan had never felt so helpless to stop something. She wanted to feel his lips, feel his hair, feel his body, and forget their situation. She wanted to forget the dark, the walls, the feeling of being caged. She wanted him.

She wanted him _desperately_.

So she kissed him. Without any ulterior motive except to forget, to feel good, she curled her hand possessively around the nape of his neck and she kissed him.

And the warden responded remarkably well. Tightening his arm, he pulled her closer, kissing her back. She was not accustomed to a man being able to move her about in this way, nor to him meeting her on equal ground like this; she had always been the one in control in previous couplings, and it made her uncomfortable to have her ability to dictate her own body taken away. But as soon as Alistair had her straddling his lap his grip loosened, and instead his hands were on her, feeling her through her clothing in a way that made her feel like the most desirable creature ever to exist.

His mouth was hot, his tongue a bit clumsy but not unappealingly so. The hair on his face was rough but not unappealingly so, the lips themselves also warm and malleable despite being chapped from his exertions. His body moving under her almost made her melt. His constant activity, sparring, fighting, carrying the heavy armor on his frame, made for a powerful frame, yet with a thin layer of fat over it that made him soft and pliable under her hands.

The contrast made her head spin. She wanted more.

Almost clawing at him, Morrigan had Alistair's shirt up over his head in moments. Spreading her fingers against his chest, she ran them through a thick trail of curls in the very center, blonde as the rest of his hair. Around it, his skin was almost hot, yet smooth, his muscles moving softly under her fingers in an entirely pleasant way.

 _Constantly carrying that armor must relieve him of much of his body hair_ , she thought to herself, running her fingers up over his smooth arms. The only place she found the coarse hair was in the center of his chest and on his stomach, both places his armor would not chafe. It was… pleasant, to feel smooth skin juxtaposed with the coarse hair that marked him a man.

Looking up, she caught his gaze, and what she saw made her heart speed up. Raw desire, with something underlying it. He didn't just want her body. He wanted _all_ of her. And perhaps she could not give him that, had no desire to give all of herself to a man, but never before had she found the idea even slightly appealing. She _liked_ that he felt safe to her, that for the first time she was with a person who wanted only her, and not something _from_ her – certainly not something she wasn't willing to give.

It was disconcerting to think about. They were on equal footing, her first time in a situation like this, where she did not command control of the situation, did not dictate her partner's actions. Fighting a momentary panic, Morrigan took action, trying to wrestle control back with a few murmured words.

"You desire me," she purred.

It was not a question, but Alistair answered nonetheless. "Yes," he groaned, without hesitation, his hands encircling her waist, moving up her back. "You. I want you, Morrigan." He buried his hands in her hair, deft fingers find the pins and pulling, letting the strands spill loose over her shoulders.

Her eyes flashing at his verbal admission, she dipped her head, taking his lips in a feral kiss. Running her nails down his chest, she left her mark, the warrior underneath her hissing into her mouth in response. But she could feel his mounting arousal between her legs, and she knew that she had him. He was hers.

The thought was dizzying. She was back in control.

She pushed him fully back onto his bedroll, freeing both their hands to explore. As she trailed her nipping teeth down his throat, he found the hem of her shirt and began to tug upon it. She hesitated for an instant. She had never actually been completely naked with a man before, normally removing only what was necessary for the deed itself. Even with the whore at the Pearl, she had merely removed her undergarments, letting him find her sex with her skirts firmly in place.

But now? Now, she wanted to feel this man. She wanted to feel his skin beneath hers, wanted to feel how he moved, how warm and smooth he would be within her, the power within him at her disposal. And so she let him remove her shirt, sitting up and unlacing it hurriedly, before she could change her mind, before she could decide that she wanted nudity for some reason other than the power over him it gave her. His eyes burned on her, and she felt vulnerable, exposed, but when his hands met her skin, they felt _divine_ , and her discomfort was quickly displaced by her mounting need.

Alistair's hands were large, strong and callused from swordplay, and yet the strength and roughness were tempered by the reverence with which he treated her skin, her body, her breasts through cloth, her stomach and hips. And they seemed to be everywhere at once. He did not pause on any specific place, simply sweeping the length of her exposed skin a few times before gently dragging away the cloth that bound her breasts and drawing her back toward him to capture her lips in a kiss.

The feel of his chest against her breasts was unbelievably erotic. She had never experienced this, hot skin against her own sensitive nipples, burning her and yet leaving her craving more. Her own hair tickled her shoulders in a soft counterpoint to his unyielding physique and rough facial hair. She could feel the subtle movements of his muscles as his arms moved around her, holding her to him for a moment before his hands began searching once more. They tweaked her nipples, fondled her breasts, gripped her hips, dipped into the small of her back, and it was all becoming too much. Her center practically dripped with her arousal, and every time either of them moved their hips she could feel the bulge in his trousers that was evidence of his own immense excitement.

Taking matters into her own hands, she sat up again, scooting back to straddle his knees.

He followed her halfway, propping himself up on his elbows. "What are you-"

"Hush, Alistair," she commanded, looking down at him. Holding his gaze, she felt his manhood through the fabric, running her nails lightly down its length. He hissed, throwing his head back in agonized pleasure, causing a grin to spread slowly across her lips.

The control he so willingly gave her was heady, leaving her momentarily dizzy once more.

Taking the fastenings in her fingers, she opened the front of his trousers, feeling his manhood straining against his smallclothes with the tips of her fingers. It was blisteringly hot, even through the fabric, and incredibly hard. The thought that he was literally straining to get to her, and yet holding himself back, not reaching for her, letting her have her way in this, made her heart pound. In one swift move, she half-stood and pulled his trousers to his knees, the splint not allowing for any more. Then she reached for the front hem of her skirt, ready to lift it and have her way with him.

When she looked upon him, his eyes caught her attention before anything else. They pleaded with her, for release, for the ability to touch her, or perhaps for something else. She could not tell. Not until he voiced his desire.

"Please, Morrigan. I want to feel you. Don't…"

"Don't what?" she asked, her voice becoming hard as she experienced a moment of insecurity.

He sighed, sitting up. His eyes never strayed from her face. Taking her hands, he removed them from her skirt. "Don't cheapen this by hiking up you skirt. I want _you_ , Morrigan. All of you. I want to feel you against me." His eyes hardened slightly. "Neither of us is a whore here for the other's pleasure."

She frowned. "Then what is this if it is not pleasure?"

"I don't know. Pleasure, certainly, but it's different, too. Isn't it?"

She searched his eyes, finding only truth behind them. He was right. As much as she loathed to admit it – and would do so _only_ to herself – there was more here than simple lust. She needed him against her, inside of her, holding her, moving underneath her, his breath and his words whispered into her ear. She wanted all of him, too.

The thought terrified her, and yet she could not deny herself what she needed. Not when she was so close to having it.

"Very well," she said after a few moments of complete and utter silence. Guiding his hands to her hips, they undid the clasps for her skirt together, unwrapping her. She settled straddling him once more, his manhood tickling her lower belly, and looked into his eyes.

He just looked right back, cradling her cheek with one callused hand as he caressed her hip and waist with the other. Then he pulled her in for another kiss, and she was helpless to stop it, so under the power of her own desire was she. The kiss was soft and tender, but her attention was immediately pulled by his wandering hand. It left her hip and traveled to her belly, tickling through a dark thatch of thick curls there before teasing their way in. She gasped, but he kept kissing her, kept cradling her face, even as his dancing fingers found the bundle of nerves above her entrance.

He adopted a very quick circular motion, immediately causing a coil of heat to gather deep in her belly. Where had he learned _that_?! She allowed a quiet moan to escape into his mouth, for she desperately did _not_ want him to stop. His fingers were slick with her arousal as her hips bucked against his hand. His kiss was submissive, though, allowing her to plunder his mouth with her tongue, allowing her teeth to sink into his lower lip. Her nails raked across his shoulders, and in no time at all, she was at the brink of a climax and desperate to have him already.

Breaking away, she gasped, "Enough!" Taking him in her hands, she stroked his length, pleased that he was neither too large nor too small. His skin was on fire, and he jumped in her hands, finally breaking eye contact to view her hands wrapped around his length. Rising, she guided him to her entrance, teetering for just a moment before lowering herself once more.

They both gasped as their hips met. He felt like warm silk inside of her, moving against her slick walls as her muscles involuntarily twitched around him. He was not difficult to accommodate, yet neither was he too easy. Indeed, he was a perfect fit, but she did not think overlong on the implications of that realization, for he had wrapped an arm around her waist, the other's hand going to her hip. Catching her lips, he began to guide her in a gentle rocking rhythm, allowing her freedom in movement but stabilizing her with his strong arms.

His body felt… amazing, though that seemed too trite a word. He was a treasure, warm and soft against her where his armor had worm away the hair, yet with undeniable power underneath, supporting her without overpowering her. Having this much raw strength at her disposal, to do with as she pleased, made her almost giddy, and yet she was not compelled to use it in some way. He felt too good for that. She merely moved with him, continuing to invade his mouth with her tongue, feeling him move inside of her.

She almost yelped when his hand moved to her sex once more. "What are you-"

He grinned. "Hush, Morrigan." She noted in the back of her head that he echoed her own words from earlier, but as his fingers had started to swirl in her wetness, stroking her once more, she had very little presence of mind left with which to chide him. Moaning, she clutched at him, holding herself to him as a mounting wave came ever closer.

And then it was there, and she was powerless to do anything but cry out, digging her nails into his flesh, biting his shoulder to muffle her passion so the others did not hear through the mountain of rocks between them. It appeared that her own body clamping down upon him had the desired effect, as with a few more jerks of his hips, he released, his own bit-off cry of passion echoing on the walls around them for a moment.

It wasn't until later, as they dozed skin-to-skin, very few words having passed between them as Alistair pulled his trouser back on and dragged his blanket over them, that she realized she had not thought of the dark ritual mentioned in the fake grimmoire once. Yes, this had been her plan, to seduce him in preparation for the ritual, to make him more pliable, more agreeable once she finally knew how to work the magic. But the fact that it had happened without her once thinking of the ritual gave her pause. A quiet panic settled deep within her chest, but she was already too close to sleep, and his skin was so soft and warm, and all that was able to happen was for the panic to quiet and settle, leaving a vaguely disquieted feeling as sleep overcame her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original publishing notes: Okay. So. This chapter. I don't even... I'm a lesbian. I have never had sex with a man, nor do I know what it is like to be a man. I know what it's like to be with a woman, and to be a woman. This was something I always intended to write - there was just too much build-up to do them the disservice of a fade-to-black. Plus, I really wanted Morrigan to have actual feelings, and to explore them while in the act. But the smut parts themselves were giving me all kinds of fits. So I enlisted the help of Diablo Kades early on, to, well... research? I dunno! We got over her British politeness and she actually told me what is appealing about men to those who find men sexually appealing. And then she read what I wrote and corrected a few things (I have a thing for soft skin. Apparently hairy men don't have that? Even hairy ladies have soft skin under the hair... SO CONFUSING FOR ME TO WRITE, I TELL YOU). Then Raven Sinead did the same thing, informing me that Alistair would never get an erection for the pain of his broken leg. And yeah. Here you have my attempt at writing smut for a coupling for which I have zero experience to inform me how it might go. There's probably a few things that aren't ideal, but I can't make it perfect. I'm probably more worried than I need to be, but whatever. Just don't be too cruel when you let me know how you liked this.
> 
> Also, please dear God someone tell me your recognize the Seven of Nine reference when Morrigan says she's undamaged...


	41. The Spirit Lies Dormant

The corpse of the broodmother burned, illuminating the cavernous chamber in brilliant reds and oranges. Wynne could barely move for her pain. She was pinned to the ground by a pile of debris, and she could tell just by the numb feeling in her fingers that her arm was traumatically broken in several places.

 _You need me_.

Wynne closed her eyes, and a flash of blue energy emerged behind her lids. _Yes. Yes, I do need you, friend. I fear we_ _ **all**_ _need you_.

The blue spread through her, warming her limbs, reviving the feeling in her fingers and toes, relieving the pain in her joints, driving the fog from her mind. She felt herself rise, her body moving without her conscious thought. The power flowing through her healed her body, moved the large rocks pinning her down, swelling inside of her until she thought she might burst.

Instead, the power spilled from her.

Radiating outward, the blue liquid light pushed away from her, moving everything in its path. Uncovering every one of her companions in turn, the blue energy suffused each of them, healing broken bones, sealing wounds, and reenergizing each of them after the seemingly never-ending fight with the hellish monstrosity whose burning corpse was now their source of light.

Then the energy flagged, and Wynne fell upon the fallen stones, a whispered goodbye sounding in the back of her mind. Pushing herself to her feet, she surveyed the room, seeing her companions, looking around. Zevran stood with his leather breastplate hanging off one shoulder, the straps presumably torn. Sten, Natia, and Oghren were all pulling their weapons from the rubble, their armor in a similar state of disrepair. Max nudged a completely naked Solona in the thigh, the mage now sprouting an impressive head of hair, her eyebrows and other body hair firmly in place after having been burned from her. Wynne chuckled to herself, knowing her own hair had likely grown out, too, from the regenerative nature of her spirit's power.

She paused to consider the spirit. It had always been curious about her, as a child and through her adult life, but had never chosen to intervene in any action she had taken until the demon in the Tower had pulled her into the Fade, almost killing her. The spirit had intervened then, filling her with energy and life, binding itself to her body, to live dormant within her, lending her its energy and experiencing the world of the living by watching through her eyes. She hadn't known this sort of partnership or cooperation could exist, but here she was, living proof.

And now the spirit had come forth and saved Wynne's life once more, as well as the rest of her companions. Something told her it would not be able to do so again. It was a spirit outside of the Fade: its power was far greater than her own, but limited now as the spirit was not in the Fade. If the enchanter was to keep living, it could not expend its energy in that way again.

Continuing her examination of the room, she quickly realized that both Alistair and Morrigan were absent. "Where are they?" she asked quietly, to herself.

"What?" Zevran came up next to her, fiddling with the straps of his armor. "What did you say, Wynne?"

"Where-"

"Wynne!" She turned to see Solona, still naked, her halo of hair bouncing with her as she danced along the rocks to get to her mentor. "What happened, Wynne? What was that?"

"Yes," Zevran chimed in, placing his hand on her shoulder and furrowing his brows in concern. "What happened, Wynne? I had no idea you were capable of such a thing."

"I…" She shook her head as Solona reached her, Leliana right on her tail. "There is not time right now. I promise I will tell you later. We need to find Alistair and Morrigan. And… I…"

Blackness had been encroaching upon her vision. She had tried to ignore it, but it was too much, and as she faltered, it leapt forward, taking her into its comfortable embrace.

* * *

"Wynne!"

Zevran lunged forward, catching his lover just before her head hit the ground. "I've got you, Wynne," he murmured, lowering her the rest of the way to the hard stone floor. Solona watched as he checked her pulse. "She's okay," he breathed, gathering her up into his arms and lifting her. She was a slight woman, and clearly easy to carry. Making his way over the rocks, he carried her to the edge of the rock fall. Sten followed, unbuckling his backpack as he went.

"Solona, leave him be. She is okay." Solona turned around to find Leliana right next to her. "We have to find Alistair and Morrigan. "

"Shit. You're right, they're not here." Running up to what had been the exit, she called his name. "Alistair!" No answer. "Alistair! Where are you?! Are you all right?"

She paused to wait for an answer. "Solona?!" It was faint, but there, and definitely coming through the rocks before her. "Solona, I'm okay!"

"Alistair, thank the Maker!" Relief washed through her, and it was only then that she realized how panicked she truly was. "Is Morrigan with you?" She continued to shout. "Everyone else is accounted for!"

She awaited his response, scanning the chamber once more. She smirked as Oghren and Natia both rid themselves of their damaged armor. Max was busy sniffing in the middle of the room, Leliana – whose armor was the least damaged, likely because Solona had thrown herself over the bard to protect her – going to see what the mabari was worried about. Zevran had rid himself of his mangled armor as well, and Sten was busy laying out his own bedroll for Wynne. Solona was entirely puzzled that he would do such a thing for a mage, but didn't have time to think on it further, as Alistair responded at that moment.

"I have Morrigan! She's alive!"

"Hang on, Alistair! We'll dig through to you!" She paused, taking in all the rock between him and her. "It might take a while…"

She heard him laugh, and chuckled herself. She wasn't sure she'd ever had such an eventful few hours before in her life. Perhaps when she discovered her arcane powers?

"Solona! Max found your pack! And it's remarkably undamaged." Leliana came up behind her, Solona's pack – burned straps dangling – in her hands. "This means we can get you some clothing."

Solona smirked. "You don't like the view?"

Leliana frowned. "Now is hardly the time for that, Solona. I just watched you set yourself on _fire_ -"

A snort caught both their attention. "Yeah, warden. A fireball would have been sufficient. But no," Natia continued, shaking her head as she laughed. "You had to _be_ the fireball."

"Yeah, overkill, Solona," Oghren added. "I like it." Solona turned toward him, wincing as she caught him grinning – and unapologetically leering.

"Right you are, Leli, let's get me some clothing," she said, grabbing her lover by the arm and ushering her away.

In the end, the best they could do for her filthy state was a sponge bath. But she was grateful regardless, as all the muck and dirt and dust drying on her body had been getting exceedingly uncomfortable. Add to that the fact that she had not bathed since leaving Orzammar, and really the sponge bath all of them were able to partake in was a gift sent directly from the Maker Himself. Now dressed in a linen shirt and a set of leather breeches that did _not_ fit well under her armor – but which was not a problem because her gorgeous new armor was now damaged beyond repair in the rubble somewhere – she began to help Sten, Oghren, and Natia shift the rocks. She had to be careful, as her boots were ruined and she would have to go barefoot for the foreseeable future, but there was nothing else for it.

Part of Morrigan's staff was unearthed very quickly, as was Alistair's sword. Solona repressed a shudder as she tried not to think about finding one of their arms under all this rubble. Thank the Maker for small miracles.

A rock rolled away below her, and she turned to see Leliana making her way up to the top of the rock fall.

"Leli," she said, getting the bard's attention. "Mind if I join you?"

Furrowing her brows, Leliana shook her head, continuing up the slope to Solona's side. "Why would I mind?"

Solon grinned sheepishly as she reached for Leliana's hand. "Because I think I was ignoring you leading up to this fight."

Leliana shrugged. "We were all on edge, Solona."

"'On edge' doesn't _begin_ to describe it." Solona shuddered. "That _thing_ felt like knives on my skull. It was all I could do to keep my magic in check and not run off to find it and kill it."

Leliana frowned. "It felt that different from the other darkspawn?"

Solona nodded. "Yes. It felt like hundreds of them condensed into one. And I started feeling it _days_ ago. At first a more insistent tickle at the base of my skull, but by the time we found Hespith in that tunnel, it was knives carving into bone." She shuddered at the memory. "It sets my teeth on edge just thinking about it."

Leliana reached for the mage's cheek, caressing it lightly with a dusty hand. "I always seem to forget how uncomfortable that is for you. I cannot imagine how it must feel, to have their presence affect you so."

Solona smiled, turning her face to kiss Leliana's palm. "I don't blame you for forgetting; it is completely indescribable, in truth. They are frightening enough to look upon. There are few people upon whom I would wish this feeling. Perhaps Loghain…"

Leliana giggled. "Oh, Alistair would have such a fit if that man were to be made a warden!"

Solona shook her head, chuckling. "He would! Luckily, that will never happen. I would never allow it. The man who ensured the death of our brethren would never be allowed among our ranks."

After a moment of smiling like idiots at each other, Solona remembered what they should be doing and turned to get back to work. "Come. We must continue if we are to reach our friends."

* * *

Solona sat next to Wynne, taking a break to eat the bowl of stew she was handed. She noticed that the Senior Enchanter was still fatigued, though she tried to hide it by cooking their meal. She had awoken an hour before, eating and drinking as Zevran fussed over her. She had then insisted upon doing her part, and had made them a meal with the deepstalker meat they had wrapped and saved in their packs.

Taking a bite of the flavorless stew – it was difficult to put such a thing together in so short a time, and with no spices to boot – Solona finally broached the subject they had been avoiding. "So what _did_ happen, Wynne? You dodged the subject before, by passing out. I didn't think I would rub off on you so much."

Wynne chuckled, then sighed, seeming to sag. "Very well. I suppose I _do_ owe you an explanation. But… Zevran?" She called for the elf, his head popping up from the top of the rock pile they were working on shifting.

"Yes?"

"You should come here." It was all the explanation she gave, but it appeared to be all the explanation he needed. He was seated with them in less than a minute, his light frame having no problem scampering down from the rocks.

As he ran, Solona merely raised an eyebrow in question. Wynne smiled humorlessly in response. "I am about to reveal something I have yet to speak with my lover about. It is only fair that I include him in our discussion, no?" Solona could not deny that.

"Here I am," Zevran announced, sitting cross-legged on the most comfortable bit of rubble he could find. "What is amiss?"

"I must explain what happened earlier," Wynne said simply.

"Ah, yes, I was wondering when our fearless leader would badger it out of you." A mischievous look settled upon his features. "I admit I am very curious myself; such displays of power drive an elf _mad_ with desire." He smirked at the last.

"Ugh, okay, going to be sick here," Solona announced, mock-gagging at him, only causing him to chuckle.

Wynne rolled her eyes. "Honestly, I am surrounded by children…" Clearing her throat, she got both of their attention. "Firstly, you should know that… well, something happened to me at the Tower, before you came along. Petra, my apprentice, encountered a demon, and it would have easily killed her had I not intervened. I saved her life, but… I did not survive the encounter."

Solona furrowed her brows. Wynne did not survive… what? How? She was sitting right here! She certainly _looked_ lively enough, if exhausted from whatever magic she called upon to save them all. What could she mean? Maybe it had something to do with that magic? Solona had never heard of its like.

"What do you mean, you did not survive?" Zevran was just as perplexed as Solona. "Here you are, alive and well! And you were nothing if not a powerhouse of life and womanhood when we found you at the Tower."

Wynne pinched the bridge of her nose. "Let me explain fully. I engaged a _very_ powerful demon to rescue Petra, and it sapped me of all my energy and will, and left me drained. It literally took everything I had to defeat it. With it defeated, I no longer had the strength to keep my heart beating, I was so drained. My life ebbed away… Everything receded from me: sound, light. I was enveloped in complete, impenetrable darkness."

Wynne paused, a look of wonder coming over her features. "And then I sensed a… presence. Enfolding me, cradling me, whispering quietly to me. The sensation is… _impossible_ to describe. I was being… held back, firmly but gently, as a mother would a child, eager to slip from her grasp. And then I felt life, and warmth, flowing through my veins again. I remember strange details; I was suddenly aware of very small sounds, and the discomfort of my hip pressing into the stone floor." She shook her head, a smile on her face.

"That… is amazing, Wynne," Zevran replied, looking to Solona questioningly. Solona could only shake her head. Wynne had been saved by a spirit. That was the only answer she had. Looking back to Wynne, he asked, "What was the presence? A spirit of some kind?"

Wynne nodded. "The Fade contains many spirits, both benevolent _and_ malicious. The benevolent spirits seldom make themselves known, because they want nothing from mortals, unlike the demons. It was one of _these_ spirits that saved me. Without it, I would be dead. But what's more, it has not left me. It is with me, even now, bonded to me. In many ways, we are one, though I remain myself, with my own mind. I… am supposed to be dead. It is the spirit that is keeping me in this world, providing the life energy I need to sustain my body. And in return, it seems the world through mortal eyes. When it rejoins the Fade spirits, when I die, it will have _such_ an experience to bring with it."

"I… have never heard of such a thing," Solona breathed, looking upon her former teacher with awe. "To house a spirit and not be an abomination… It is a _wonder_."

"This is… _not_ the way of things. Perhaps the spirit did not expect this, but it is weakening, gradually, now that it is in this world sustaining a mortal body. I… I am afraid I am living on borrowed time." Wynne said the last while staring intently at Zevran.

He did not react, merely gazing back at her. "Perhaps I should go," Solona started, but was stopped when Zevran's eyes snapped up to her own.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "It is all right, Solona. You are a mage, you should learn what you can. Wynne and I can speak privately… later. Though," he continued, looking back to Wynne, "I would stay, and try to understand what I may."

Solona nodded, looking back to her mentor. "Why… Why did the spirit choose to cohabitate with you, Wynne?"

Wynne shrugged, a decidedly un-Wynne-like gesture. "I have always had an affinity for the spirits of the Fade. As a child, I never feared my dreams, as some children with the gift do." Solona nodded. She remembered her first Fade dreams, where she was awake inside the Fade. It was… distinctly unsettling at the age of five. "I knew these benevolent spirits were there, and they made me feel safe. I could sense the demons, too, and their presence frightened me. It was the kindly spirits that took the fear from me. I've always been able to feel them, even if I never saw them. As I nurtured my talent for creation, for healing and the restoration of life, I became even more sensitive. I began to notice that every time I was in the Fade, whether in my dreams or for magical practice, that I was being watched."

"So, you and this _particular_ spirit have a… a rapport?" Wynne nodded in answer to Solona's question. "Astounding," the warden breathed.

"Sometimes I would see it, a glowing, nebulous form. Most times, however, I would simply feel its presence, gentle and comforting, but somehow alien. I think… I think it is a spirit of Faith. They have never been seen before, and perhaps I am wrong, but something tells me I'm not. It always felt like the same… entity, like this _one_ spirit was curious about _me_ , and was… guarding me, for want of a better word."

Solona knit her brows. "Guarding you?"

"Yes," Wynne said with a nod. "There were times I was in the Fade, and it… stretched forth, shielding me, from what I could not tell. But I think it gave me strength in my most terrible confrontations, in the Fade and out. Ostagar was one of these, the demon in the Tower another. I do not know why I was chosen at that moment. Perhaps it knew there was something more that lay in store for me. I… like to think that I was given a rare chance, and by the Maker, Solona, I am going to make the _best_ of the time that is so generously extended to me. I will fight alongside the Grey Wardens, help to prepare them for the task that is yet before them. And I will _love_ , Zevran," she added, turning to her lover. "We do not know _when_ this life will leave us, but I would like to spend the time I have at your side."

He smiled. "I cannot say that I am completely unaffected by this revelation, but… I want to be at your side, as well. My dear, dear Wynne."

Solona considered Wynne for a moment before answering. When she finally did, it was with a smirk on her face. "So what you're saying is, I ought to be on my best behavior?"

Wynne laughed. "Indeed! For should I perish in this conflict, and it does not look like you have heeded my advice, I shall simply get back up and administer a good finger-wagging with my lecture!"

Laughing, they continued conversing as they rested and ate, working in short shifts to make enough room at the top of the exit to pass through to the other side.


	42. Branka

Alistair opened his eyes to find his mouth covered by someone's hand. He tried to cry out, but it was clapped on there like a vice. Several seconds later, his eyes focused upon a pair of grinning faces above him. Familiar faces.

Leliana placed a finger over her smiling lips, the universal sign for silence, and then the hand over his mouth – presumably hers – released him. "What are you doing?" he whispered hoarsely.

She giggled. "Alistair, you have been a naughty boy!"

Then his situation hit him. He'd had sex with Morrigan, and her naked body lay pressed against his chest, his arm around her. She was warm, soft, her skin sliding against his like silk with the small movements of sleep. Looking down, he was struck by the vision of her naked body against him, the blanket now down around her hips. Her skin was warm, and soft, and the sight of her caused a surge of arousal between his legs – until he moved a fraction of an inch. Then the pain radiating from his broken leg hit him, killing his arousal and causing him to grimace.

"Shit!" he mouthed, trying to keep quiet, needing Morrigan to not wake, not with Solona and Leliana there. "Go… hide or something! She'll kill us if she wakes with you here!"

"Yes, we figured that," Solona answered, still grinning widely. "Tell me, was it all sweet kisses and soft caresses? Or did she push you down and take you?"

Confused, he answered honestly. "I don't know. A little of both? Get out of here!"

Snickering, the two women scampered off, hardly making a sound. He had no idea how they managed it, but he didn't spare any time to think on it, instead pulling the blanket up to cover Morrigan's bare breasts.

"Morrigan?" he tried, giving her a gentle nudge. It was enough. She started awake, immediately trying to sit up – which he let her do. The last thing he needed was her hitting him with some spell if she felt caged in by his embrace. Averting his eyes, he spoke. "Morrigan, you need to wake up and get dressed. The others have dug through to us. We need to get moving."

Her warmth moved from his side without a word. He didn't really know what to think about that. Should they talk about the night before? Would it happen again? He didn't even know how he felt about _her_ , let alone their coupling. He _hated_ Morrigan! Didn't he?

"I need someone to talk to," he whispered to himself. Looking around, he found his shirt nearby and pulled it on, wondering what would happen. He wasn't stupid enough to think he and Morrigan were just… _together_ now, like Solona and Leliana or Wynne and Zevran. Morrigan was much more complicated than that. But… figuring out how to feel about what had happened certainly couldn't hurt. Right?

He just hoped he didn't come to regret it.

* * *

Leliana scooted forward on her belly. The glow of a thousand or more torches lit the chamber, showing them an incredible sight: thousands of darkspawn, fighting around fires, eating the flesh of their fallen, moving and undulating in a way that made them look less like thousands of individuals and more like one moving body. Alistair and Solona were both incredibly agitated, hovering at the threshold of the cavern. Alistair's leg had healed with little trouble thanks to Wynne's attention, his armor repaired with the small hammer he kept to pound out dents in the metal. Leliana and Solona had not talked about finding him with a naked Morrigan in his arms, other than to agree that they had _both_ won the wager they had made so many weeks before in Redcliffe.

It had only been a few hours since they left the broodmother's lair behind. As they neared this place, the two wardens had started to feel a great presence of the taint. Upon coming to this cave opening, they were visibly distressed, sweat beading on both their faces as they tried to keep control of themselves. It would not do to run off and try to kill the darkspawn, not in the number they were feeling. They also agreed that there was something else, something tainted but different, both from the darkspawn and from what they'd felt of the broodmother. Some _new_ tainted presence.

They had both stayed back because they did not need to see the great horde below in order to believe that they were there. But Leliana and Oghren both agreed that someone should really _see_ the 'spawn in those numbers, if only for the non-wardens to get a feel for what the assault would consist of come the spring thaw. So she, Ogrhen, Natia, Zevran, and Sten all edged forward, careful to avoid making noise or showing more than the tops of their heads as they approached the cliff's edge.

Now Leliana lay at the edge of a mighty underground cliff, riveted at the sight before her. It wasn't until Zevran's hand on her shoulder caught her attention that she noticed the far more horrifying tableau off in the distance: a mighty dragon, blue and black with scales that shone like obsidian, reminding her of razor-sharp arrowheads even at this distance. A blast of blue flames bathed the rocks around it, its large head turned down upon its tainted minions below. This was the archdemon. This was the one in control of the mighty organism spread out on the floor of the ravine.

Suddenly, the dragon launched itself from its perch, headed right toward them. _Does it see us? Does it know we are here? Can it sense the wardens as separate from those it controls?_ Throwing caution to the wind, Leliana rose to her feet, running for Alistair and Solona, suddenly terrified for them. She found them both with weapons drawn, staring intently at the archdemon. They would apparently take on the creature and its entire army in their bloodlust. Running full speed, the bard tackled Alistair just as he began to run, seemingly intent upon jumping the mighty dragon as it passed them – below the lip of the cliff-top, thank the Maker.

Landing on his chest as he hit the ground, she let out an "oof" before hauling herself to her feet, throwing a hand out to catch hold of Solona's bare foot. The mage hit the ground hard, a great breath bursting from her upon impact. Leliana had to stop them. They could not sacrifice themselves like this. She could not lose them; not here, not like this.

"You cannot go after it now!" she hissed, not daring to release the mage's foot – she had seen the glowing eyes and sword, knew the woman had allowed her power to flow through her as her blood boiled from the darkspawn presence. Nor did she dare move from Alistair's chest. "You lack an army! You cannot defeat it _now_! You must wait! Now is _not_ the time!"

After a moment, Solona stopped struggling, her sword losing its glow. Alistair, however, wedged his fist underneath the bard and heaved, launching her off of him just as she relinquished her hold on her lover to deal with his struggling. She hit the ground face-first. The stone bit into the fair skin of her cheek, and she knew she would have a cut the next time she had an opportunity to look. It might even scar. At the moment, however, that was the least of her worries. _Oh how Marjolaine must be rolling in her grave…_

"Solona, don't let him go!"

She shouted it even as she turned over. When she came to a stop, she saw Solona dashing after the slower man, encumbered by his armor as he was. With a mighty leap, she was atop him, bringing him to the ground. In a flash, she was straddling his chest, pulling at the straps of his helm and pushing it off his head.

Taking his face in both her hands, Solona hauled him around so that their gazes met. "Alistair! We cannot take it on our own, not like this!"

He didn't seem to hear her, simply trying to push her off of him. Leliana winced as she saw a flash along the mage's hand, and then Alistair yelled, but stopped struggling. A few seconds of silence followed. Pushing herself to her feet, Leliana approached the pair cautiously.

"Solona?" Leliana heard Alistair whisper. "Solona, is _that_ what we have to deal with? How are we supposed to be equipped to kill that thing?"

Leliana's heart broke at his tone: equal parts pleading that it wasn't true and incredulous that it was.

"Maybe we can't," Solona answered, sitting up and looking down into his face. "But we have to try. Just… not yet. We have to give ourselves at least some slim chance that we'll succeed."

Nodding, he dropped his head to the floor, panting to catch his breath. "What made you stop?"

Solona looked up, catching Leliana's eyes with her own, pupils wide in the dim light of the caverns. "A very wise and strong spitfire of a woman, who was able to put both of us on the floor."

"Leliana?" Solona nodded as Alistair turned his head. "Thank you, Leliana. I don't know what we'd do without you, honestly."

Leliana smirked, her heartbeat finally slowing after their quick but upsetting ordeal. "Neither do I, Alistair. You are both hopeless without me, you know that?"

* * *

"I sense darkspawn."

Alistair stopped, removing his helmet and cocking his head to the side. "I don't."

"I do," Solona replied simply, starting forward again at a jog. "They're fighting something," she explained as she went, pulling her sword from the scabbard they had salvaged for her. It didn't fit her sword perfectly, but it was close enough to keep her from having to hold it at all times.

Shaking his head, Alistair followed, the rest of his companions following behind, Morrigan at the outer edge of the group. She had been cold since they awoke together, not speaking to him or anyone else – not even to say something disparaging. But he hadn't had much time to think on it, as they had been constantly moving since. Something within him told him they were close to their target. Maybe it was as simple as each of them wanting to get the _hell_ out of the Deep Roads, which they had spent almost three weeks traversing at this point, but whatever it was, it spurred them to move faster, to sleep less, and for the two wardens especially to look around each corner with anticipation – anticipation and dread.

As he ran after Solona, he started to feel it, too. Fingertips along his skull, a not-quite voice whispering in the back of his mind. Maybe a group of half a dozen? Definitely fighting, just as Solona said. Why could she sense it before he did? Maybe he was just tired…

Pulling his sword, Alistair slowed as Solona did. Wynne extinguished her staff, and they waited, sneaking onward. As silently as he could, he fastened his shield to his arm, feeling his blood begin to pump harder as his body responded to the proximity of these darkspawn.

Turning a corner in the tunnels, he took in the scene before him for a moment. A full half-dozen darkspawn fought a single person – likely a dwarf, given his diminutive size. The figure gave off a grunt, and there was a pulse of excitement in the mental connection he shared with the beasts, the fingertips along his skull digging in for a moment. Brandishing his sword, he tapped Solona on the shoulder and motioned for them to join. Nodding, she started forward silently, her bare feet making no sound upon the stone.

He really oughtn't have even bothered with his weapons, in the end. Solona lit up immediately, dealing fiery death to more than half the darkspawn in the room, the others falling to Oghren's axe and the new dwarf's sword. Alistair didn't even get to do more than let out a battle cry and take a few steps before it was practically over. Sighing, he sheathed his sword and removed his shield, feeling somewhat impotent next to the flame-spouting powerhouse that was Solona.

"What are you?" The dwarf's voice was gruff and feminine, and as he got closer, he could see the telltale hourglass shape of the woman's form that it seemed all female dwarves shared. She still held her sword up, her eyes narrowed in distrust in the light that once again shone from Wynne's staff – the only staff which had survived the rockslide.

"I'm not even sure I know what you're asking," Solona offered, sheathing her sword and addressing the dwarven woman, her eyes no longer glowing. "Are you asking _what_ we are? _Who_ we are? Why we're here?"

"Yes," the gruff voice answered, the eyes seeming to sparkle for a moment in the pale light.

Alistair laughed for a second. "Well, some of us are human." The woman's eyes snapped to him. "There's an elf," he pointed out Zevran, "and these are fellow dwarves, like yourself. That," he said, indicating Sten, "is a qunari kossith." Max yipped at being left out, butting Alistair's hip with his big head. "Ah, and this is a fearsome mabari war hound."

"We are Grey Wardens," Solona continued, eyeing the woman. Alistair knew her well enough to know the look of her shoulders, the tone to her voice; she was suspicious. But of what, specifically? "I am Solona, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden."

"And what are you doing here?" the dwarven woman asked, seeming to simply take that information in, reserving judgment for the moment.

Solona cocked her head to the side. "We are looking for the Paragon Branka… which I suspect is _you_."

Alistair was completely flabbergasted. It hadn't occurred to him, but once Solona said so, it made sense. That was the only identity for this dwarf that _did_ make sense, in fact. He looked upon her now with new eyes, seeing the woman that would abandon Oghren in Orzammar as she brought the rest of her House into the Deep Roads. This was the woman who would dishonor the people who followed her by allowing that abomination they had killed to continue existing, to continue making more darkspawn for the archdemon to command. This was the woman who would leave Hespith, the woman she purported to _love_ , to become a tainted ghoul. They never _did_ find Hespith's body, though no one believed she could have survived the battle with the broodmother or subsequent rockslide.

This woman was the true abomination. And they were here for her support? He couldn't stomach it. He hoped Solona couldn't, either.

"I am she," Branka confirmed, nodding her head once. "I am your Paragon… and I am _so_ close to reclaiming our former glory. Just a few more traps to solve, and I should be in the chamber with the Anvil of the Void. Do not stand in my way, Warden."

"You do not care _why_ we need the support of a Paragon?" Solona crossed her arms over her chest. Leliana stood very near, but behind their commander in this, letting her lover speak. Alistair took Leliana's example, crossing his arms and standing silently behind Solona and to the side.

"I'm assuming you need it for something incredibly 'important,'" she stressed the last with her fingers in the air. "My guess is Endrin died; he was getting on in years. And now the Assembly, bunch of shit-throwing nugs that they are, is deliberating and unable to come to a decision. The support of a Paragon will get you a king. Am I right?"

Solona tilted her head to the other side. "Indeed, you are."

"So why do the Grey Wardens care?"

"There is a Blight, Ser," Solona answered, uncrossing her arms and taking a step forward. "Orzammar needs a king so that she might rally her armies and help defend this land that is shared by so many."

Branka just narrowed her eyes, her sword now pointing to the ground. "I don't care if they put a drunken monkey on the throne. Our people's glory is gone, the golems and the Anvil lost to the very darkspawn they should be fighting!" She took a step away, turning and looking up at the walls in a grand gesture that was not lost on Alistair. She reminded him of Uldred, back at the Circle. Which meant she was at least a little mad.

"Branka, what the hell is this?!" It was the first time Oghren had spoken, for some reason choosing to remain still and silent, to watch what his wife had turned into. "We found Hespith, and Laryn." His voice was remarkably calm, low, even… and completely _deadly_ sounding. "I remember marrying a girl whose brilliance you could almost _see_. What are you now, Branka? A murderer. And fucking _crazy._ "

"And what dark hole did they drag you out of, Oghren? Are these humans able to stand your ale-breath?"

"That's not gonna work anymore, Branka. You betrayed your entire House! _Our_ House!" At the last, he finally yelled, striking his axe against the stone. The sparks created didn't seem to leave, instead taking up residence in his eyes. "You betrayed men and women who trusted you to lead them, and instead you allowed them to turn into that _thing_ we had to _kill_!"

"Oghren," Solona murmured, placing a hand on his shoulder. He stopped his slow advance upon his wife, the sparks in his eyes turning back to Solona. "She will pay for her crimes." The mage turned back toward Branka. "I promise."

"Good luck getting my support for your choice for king," Branka said, her voice every bit as low and dangerous as Oghren's.

Solona stood still for a moment, considering the dwarf. "Fine," she said after a moment, relaxing. "You say the Anvil is close? We help you find it, you support our choice for king. Give us some trinket to convince the Assembly we found you, and we leave you _here_. You are no longer fit for society, not even one who would come up with something as crude as your caste system."

"Solona," Alistair began, finally unable to hold in his thoughts. "What are you doing?"

"It's fine, Alistair," she answered him. "We need a king, so that we may fight the Blight."

"But this woman is the abomination, more so than any mage could _ever_ be!"

She rounded on him, looking intimidating despite how much less power her frame usually seemed to hold compared to his own. "Dammit, Alistair!"

"Dissention in the ranks? Interesting," Branka drawled.

"Shut it, Branka," Oghren replied, turning to witness whatever was to happen between Alistair and Solona.

"Solona, we can't let her have her prize!" Alistair pleaded, wondering at her willingness to deal with someone so corrupt.

"Did you not see it, Alistair? Did you not _see_ the archdemon?" She whispered at first, getting steadily louder until she was yelling at him. " _That_ is what we must face! _That_ is what all of this is for! Let us be done with this part of the journey. Let us get a king on the throne who can rally the armies, let us unseat Loghain, and let us be done with all of it! My blood burns to kill my enemy, and I will not let this inconsequential _cretin_ stand in my way!" She took a step back, calming a little. "If she wants to spend her days wasting away down here trying to bring back the golems, then let her. We have larger concerns."

He narrowed his eyes. "You've _never_ compromised your principles like this, Solon-"

"Alistair." This time, Leliana interrupted him, stepping in front of her lover. "You need to trust her, Alistair. You agreed to follow her lead, to have her make the final decisions, yes? So let her lead you. Let her lead all of us. At least in this."

He couldn't believe it. He didn't know what to say. He just stood there, mouth partly open, staring in shock. What in the Maker's name was going on?

The two women turned, indicating Branka should lead the way and following her. Everyone else fell in behind, leaving Alistair to stare after them before hurrying to catch up, still utterly flabbergasted at Solona's behavior.

* * *

"You couldn't get past this last trap because you don't have magic. You would have never made it through on your own."

"That makes sense… but how did Caradin manage? He was a dwarf, too."

Solona shrugged. "Who knows who he had in his employ?"

Branka allowed this with a nod.

She was a brilliant woman, there was no doubt about it. But she was also stark raving mad. Solona kept being reminded of Uldred and his rant about power and grandeur back in the Circle Tower. She couldn't tell Alistair, and she knew he was still sulking about her pulling rank on him, but she had no intention of actually letting Branka free. She had to pay for her crimes. But Solona had to at least wait for some trinket to appear that would convince the Assembly they had found the Paragon. She didn't know what they would do with Branka once they had what they needed, but the thought of merely letting the woman continue was… well, Alistair was correct in being disgusted with Solona for helping Branka. Hopefully he would understand once all was made clear, however.

She let the curtain cutting off her arcane power drop, feeling the energy flow through her. This last trap was a magical one, but simple. There were symbols carved into the wall, arcane symbols that only she, Wynne, and Morrigan would recognize. They didn't spell out a language exactly, were merely symbols for the elements she knew how to control. Studying it for a moment, she placed her hand on the first symbol, the one for fire. Heating her hand, she let a small blast of flame wash over the symbol. It began to glow, and stayed that way as she moved to the other symbols, washing each in water, ice, lightning, and, finally, a pure white light. The symbols glowed brightly for a moment, and then a seam appeared in the wall, splitting apart to allow them entrance, the rock seeming to melt away into nothing.

What happened next took Solona completely by surprise, even with her enhanced senses due to her channeling of her arcane power. She heard Branka's voice shout, "To me, to me!" as a great weight pushed her from behind, sending her sprawling into the chamber just opened to them. She was on her feet faster than humanly possible, but it was not before she was already cut off from everyone else. She and Branka were alone in the cavernous chamber, three giant stone golems with glowing veins of lyrium all down their bodies standing at her back.

"You should've listened to your friend, Warden." Branka wielded some sort of glowing sticks or rods, held in one fist as she slowly advanced on the shoe-less, armor-less mage. Solona pulled her sword, not even noticing anymore that it glowed with her excess power. Looking around briefly, she saw her companions were being actively kept back by a fourth golem. She couldn't figure out who said what, but they were clamoring, cursing Branka, calling for Solona, and trying to get past the golem blocking their way.

Shifting her eyes back to Branka, Solona spoke. "What do you want, Branka?"

"I want the Anvil, Warden. Help me get it, help me past whatever's ahead, and you're free to go, with my blessing for the next king, even. Get in my way… and I crush you and your friends into dust."

Eyes flickering back to her lover and friends for an instant, Solona made her decision. Sheathing her sword and letting the energy inside of her body flicker out, she stood up tall. "Very well, Branka. You'll have your way."

"Solona, no!" Leliana was literally in the golem's grip, so hard was she trying to get around it.

Solona held up her hand, looking pleadingly to her lover. "Leli, stay there. Don't get hurt." _I do not know what I would do if you got hurt… again_.

Turning back to Branka, she held out her hand. "Lead on, Branka. I will follow."

* * *

The chamber beyond was vast. The walls glowed a yellow-orange, and it was far warmer than it should be. Solona paused at the mouth of the opening into the chamber, her companions less than fifty feet away, still held back by the stone golem. She let her eyes fall on each boulder and crevice, trying to take in details the way she knew Leliana and Zevran would do, were they beside her. She didn't yet know what she would do, but she _must_ get out of this. She had to believe that an opportunity would present itself.

"Warden, let's go," Branka ordered, and a giant stone hand prodded Solona forward. Looking back, she saw the soulless eyes of one of the golems Branka seemed to control, its hand moving to prod her again. She beat it to the punch, taking another step forward and following Branka into the chamber itself.

"My name is Caradin." A metallic voice echoed out, startling herself and Branka both. Looking around, the mage saw a hulking metal form removing itself from a previously-hidden hollow in the wall of the cavern. Taking large, lumbering steps, it was before them in seconds, towering over even the stone golems at Solona's back.

"Once, longer ago than I care to think, I was a Paragon to the dwarves of Orzammar. If you seek the Anvil, then you _must_ care about my story, or be doomed to relive it."

"Well, that certainly sounds _ominous_ ," Branka responded, seeming to not care one whit that a giant metal Paragon stood before her. Her eyes roved around the chamber, finally landing on something in the distance. Following her gaze briefly, Solona saw what must be the Anvil off in the distance. _Shit. This just got a lot more complicated_.

"It is ominous for a reason," the metal golem replied. "You know of the might of the army of golems I raised, yes?"

"Aye," Branka replied, her eyes returning to the golem's.

"But no one knows the _cost_ ," he continued, his voice somehow hardening. "No mere smith, no matter how skilled, has the power to create life. To make my golems live, I had to take the life from elsewhere."

"That… that sounds like blood magic," Solona breathed.

Branka just laughed. "He was a _dwarf_ , Warden! As if he could use _any_ magic."

"The darkspawn were pressing in. Originally, I only took volunteers, the bravest of souls who were willing to sacrifice everything to defend their homeland. But King Valtor became greedy, and began to force men and women – casteless and criminals, his political enemies – to the Anvil." The golem paused, its shining eyes somehow brightening, pinning Solona with their intensity. "It took feeling the hammer's blow myself to realize the extent of my crimes."

"So you locked it away?!" Branka shouted, gesticulating wildly. "You took from us our greatest weapon! Our empire is nothing now! How could you possibly do that?! What right had you?!"

"He felt remorse for his crimes, Branka," Solona replied, her eyes not leaving the metal golem towering above her. "Perhaps you do not know what that means, but he wished for no one else to continue the crimes he had perpetrated. Each one of those golems you control was a dwarf once, torn from family and House, from his or her home, to do another's bidding, forever. That is slavery, and that is illegal, and more importantly it is _wrong_. That is what Andraste fought the Tevinter Imperium to rid the world of."

"Do not speak to me of your religious ravings, Warden!" Branka spat. "I have found the Anvil! I will take it and use it for its rightful people! Do not stand in my way!"

"Help me, human," the metallic voice pleaded. "Do not let the Anvil enslave more souls than it already has!"

"Do it, and your friends will die, Warden," Branka warned.

"Help him, Solona!" The mage turned, having already forgotten about her companions. "We can take care of ourselves!" It was Alistair and Leliana, shouting to her to follow her gut.

Then Oghren chimed in. "Branka! You mad, bleeding _nugtail_! Does this thing mean so much to you that you can't even see what you've lost to get it?!"

Smiling, chuckling, Solona let the energy flow through her once more. If her time had told her anything, it was that she could trust her companions to lead her true. "Make my day, Branka," she said calmly, hearing as her voice took on that quality that indicated she drew her power from the Fade, feeling the rush as the power filled her body. "I relish the challenge."

"These golems obey _me_!" Branka cried, raising the glowing rods in her hand. "Attack! Attack!"

"A control rod!" Caradin's metallic voice rang out in a shout. "You must help me, my friend!"

Letting the sounds of the world fall away, Solona jumped to the side, a heavy stone fist impacting with the earth where she had been standing. Letting her momentum carry her, the arcane warrior rolled and sprang to her feet, running. She picked up speed, reaching the stone wall of the cavern and leaping onto it, her speed allowing her to flip backwards behind the golem giving chase. Drawing her sword, she lashed out.

Sparks flew, but no damage was dealt.

_Shit. How do I fight this thing?_

Thrusting her free hand before her, she threw a blast of white-hot flame at the towering figure of stone, but it did nothing except slow the thing down, and not by much. Before she could think of something else to try, she was flying forward into another golem, a stone fist following through with the movement that sent her there.

She felt something break as she slammed into the giant stone stomach of the golem's back, but also felt it begin to heal almost immediately. Not quickly enough, however, to keep the golem from grabbing her and slamming her into the ground. Somehow pushing the pain aside, Solona rolled, avoiding a stone fist to her head, something she suspected she could not heal from quickly enough to keep from killing her. She still remembered that she had killed an arcane warrior; she was not stupid enough to think she was invincible. Rolling twice more, she felt something snap into place in her leg, and then she was on her feet again, running for dear life to put some distance between herself and the golems attacking her.

She passed Caradin grappling with the third golem, forcefully removing its arm and throwing it. Following the appendage's progress, she saw that it passed over the edge of a cliff she had not seen before. Putting the glow upon the walls and the presence of the cliff together in a heartbeat, she realized that there were lava drafts down there, as there were in Orzammar, keeping the city warm enough to live in and heat their water. And with that realization came her plan for how to defeat Branka and her golems.

Sliding to a stop at the edge of the cliff, Solona peered down, confirming the presence of the molten rock. Turning, she saw the golems were in hot pursuit, one already rearing back its mighty fist to ram her with. As she focused upon it, the world seemed to slow, and it was with a great clarity that she felt all the muscles in her legs engage. Leaping upward, she propelled herself into the air, letting out a mad laugh as the golem passed beneath her, unable to slow its momentum for its great bulk.

Looking to the second golem, she twisted around as she landed upon it, landing on its back. Pulling herself quickly to its shoulders, she leaned forward, seeking to overbalance it before it regained its composure and backed away from the edge. She succeeded, felt it begin to tip, and with another laugh she pushed herself from it, pushing it over the edge even as she launched herself into the air.

Landing upon the ground, Solona turned to find Branka backing away from Caradin, the stone golem in pieces upon the floor behind him. Letting her power leave her for the time being, the mage broke into a run, coming up alongside him. Branka looked up, a maniacal gleam in her eye. Solona heard a cut-off yelp, and when she looked around, she saw Leliana held in the grip of the golem that had been keeping her companions out of this room.

"Stay back, or I will kill her!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original A/N: Please don't kill me for this cliffhanger. My beta already has a reservation on my head for it...


	43. Anvil Of The Void

Leliana struggled, but the grip only tightened. She had watched as Solona flashed in and out of view, the giant stone golem blocking her from slipping past it. But then Solona disappeared and didn't come back. After a moment, Branka shouted, and then Leliana experienced a sudden crushing strength around her mid-section.

She winced as the string of her bow snapped, whipping up and lashing her exposed neck, a white-hot pain exploding from that point through her whole head. Next came the crack as the wood of the bow began to break under the pressure. Almost immediately she experienced the excruciating snap of one, two, three ribs. She couldn't breathe, her vision was turning black at the edges, and there was no room to ease the pressure. But it stopped there, allowing her tiny sips of breath. The black continued to seep in around the edges of her vision. If she didn't get some air, she was going to pass out.

"The control rods, Warden!" Oghren's voice filled her ears. She felt hands on her, trying to pull her free. Max barked, his nose nudging at her dangling feet. "Destroy the control rods and she won't have control over the golem anymore!"

 _So_ _ **that's**_ _what those rods were_ , Leliana thought to herself. She was feeling lightheaded, her panic giving way to morbid curiosity in how her body was feeling: the pulse of blood in her wrists, the cold almost numbness in her toes, the throb and ache in her neck and head. Sticky wetness trickled down her neck, reminding her that her snapped bowstring was what had hurt her. She pushed her hands out, feeling the smooth stone of the golem holding her. _How do they get it so smooth?_

Suddenly the pressure vanished, and she fell to the ground. Agonizing fire lanced through her chest as she gulped in air, but at least she was alive, the air pure heaven even as its inhalation caused her broken ribs to dig into her lungs.

* * *

"You _bitch_!"

"One more step and I crush her, Warden!"

Solona glared. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Look what you did to Laryn. Look what you let happen to Hespith. Look how you abandoned Oghren, your lawfully-married _husband_ , so you could chase legends in the Deep Roads." She kept her tone even, calm, but still she poured as much wrath and absolute disgust into her voice as she could manage without shouting, letting Branka know what she thought of her without startling her with sudden movements. "You are despicable, Branka."

Suddenly Oghren's voice rang out. "The control rod, Warden!" he shouted, and Solona's eyes immediately found the glowing rods in Branka's hand. She had heard of control rods. How did she not make the connection before now? "Destroy the control rods and she won't have control over the golem anymore!"

Without even thinking about the potential consequences, Solona's hand shot out, electricity jumping from her palm. It hit Branka's hand, shocking her just enough – despite her immunity to most magic – to make her release the control rods she held. Caradin acted swiftly, taking two large steps and landing upon the rods, smashing them all to dust with a vicious twist of his foot. He looked up menacingly, his eyes glowing even more brightly than Solona's.

"Shall I take care of her, human, or would you like the privilege?"

Solona was already running toward the now-freed golem, which had released Leliana and stepped aside, looking almost confused. The bard was now crumpled upon the stone floor of the cavern. "Do with her as you wish!" she yelled as she ran, wincing when she heard Branka's shout cut off abruptly. Looking back, she saw the mighty metallic golem had thrown Branka to the floor, cutting short her cry, and her life. She did not stir again.

Solona had no more thought to waste on the madwoman, instead coming to a halt next to a blessedly alive Leliana. Wynne was already kneeling beside her, the blue light of healing and creation magic flowing into a nasty-looking wound upon the bard's neck. Solona saw that the bard's bow had snapped in two, as had her quiver and the arrows inside it. _I will get her a better one when we are done with this_ , she thought to herself, falling to her knees beside her lover as Wynne pulled back.

"She will be fine, Solona. Just bruised very badly."

Looking into her lover's face, she saw that the woman was conscious, and smiling weakly. "You seem to have bad luck down here," Solona commented, a half-smile quirking up the corners of her lips. "First in Dust Town, now here."

Leliana laughed weakly. "Yes, I do not think I want to visit the dwarves again," she breathed, wincing as she inhaled. "Oh, Maker, but that hurts."

"Well," said Solona, gathering the woman into her arms and kissing her nose. "We'll just have to keep you from exerting yourself. Come along. We have a golem and his Anvil to deal with."

Standing, she held Leliana in her arms, moving barefoot toward the entrance of the chamber and Caradin, who stood over Branka's broken body.

"I was so scared for you, Leli," she said, burying her face in Leliana's hand as the smaller woman caressed her cheek. "Maker, I don't know what I would have done if that _bitch_ had succeeded."

"You would have continued on, my love" Leliana whispered, her breath coming haltingly. "You have a sense of duty to rival soldiers sworn to the king, Solona. You would carry it through. Though, I confess, I am glad you were able to save me, as well."

Solona shook her head, laughing quietly before capturing Leliana's lips in a kiss. "So am I, Leli."

"Can we trust it?" Morrigan asked as she considered Caradin, breaking over a day of near-silence since they found her with Alistair.

"Well, we just fought together, and he killed Branka. I certainly trust _him_ more than I trusted _her_ ," Solona answered over her shoulder.

"How you doin', Oghren?"

"'M _fine_ , Natia. Shut yer trap. We have a Paragon to ask to support Harrowmont's throne, and then I have a date with my flask."

"Oooo, I'll join you with that," Natia answered jovially, completely nonplussed by Oghren's gruff tone.

Solona shook her head. "'How you doin'?' Really?" Her voice was a whisper, meant for Leliana only.

Her lover shook her head, holding on around Solona's neck, her face buried against Solona's throat. "They have become friends, my love," she whispered back, kissing the hollow of Solona's throat. "If that were you and Alistair, I imagine it would have played out similarly."

"You have a fair point," Solona replied. Continuing into the main chamber, she walked up to the giant metal golem, reluctantly relinquishing her hold on her lover. Now that the danger was behind them, she wanted nothing more than to curl up naked with her and never leave their bedroll again. But, alas, she could do no such thing. Not yet.

"Ser Caradin," she addressed him, feeling she should use some honorific, but now knowing which was suitable. One from her own people would have to suffice until she was corrected.

He merely sighed. "More lives lost because of my invention. I wish no mention of it had made it into history."

"Yeah, you ain't kiddin'," Oghren gruffed, speaking from somewhere behind Solona. "Stupid woman. Always knew the Anvil would kill her. Just didn't figure she'd ever make it this far first. Or sacrifice so many of her principles."

"At least it ends here," Caradin boomed, a finality in his voice. "I thank you for standing with me, stranger. The Anvil waits there for you to _shatter_ it."

Morrigan let out a little half-laugh. "Yes, _excellent_ idea. Just destroy it now, after all this. You should _use_ it, Solona."

"Hush, Morrigan," Solona reprimanded, turning back to Caradin and furrowing her brows. "Why would you have us destroy it, Ser?"

"It has taken too many lives. I cannot do it myself – no creature made upon it may destroy it. I have waited more years than I now know for one such as you, who would see how deep my sins are and would destroy it for me. I have had to wait, for I cannot end my existence until this thing is done. It was my error, and if I cannot correct it myself, then I can at least ensure it is corrected."

"So you closed it off from the king until someone came who would end the nightmare," Leliana murmured, catching Solona's eye. "I see."

"You were a Paragon, Caradin, whether yer a golem now or not," Oghren spoke, moving to Solona's side as he stared up at the golem. "We came for the support of a Paragon. The Darkspawn move again, a Blight on th' surface. This here is the Commander of the Grey. The dwarves need a king so our army can move against the 'spawn in their next assault."

"I will not go back to Orzammar," Caradin intoned. "But," he said, turning and taking a step toward the Anvil off in the distance. "I can fashion a token. The Assembly would know it was from me, that your words of this place were true, and you may give it to whom you wish, saying I support your choice for the throne." Stopping before mounting the steps to the Anvil, he turned, seeming to scrutinize her. "Does that suit you?"

Blinking, dumbfounded for a moment, Solona answered, "Yes, Ser Caradin, it does. I never dreamed to be so lucky when we started this mad quest, in fact."

"You will destroy the Anvil?"

Standing up straighter, Solona nodded her head once. "Yes, I will. You may watch me do so."

"And what of the other one there?" Oghren asked, indicating the stone golem that had not moved since relinquishing its hold around Leliana's middle. It no longer looked confused, merely watching the proceedings with dimly glowing eyes.

"Come," Caradin called, and the creature stomped to their side. Leliana cowered a little, pressing into Solona's side. Solona could hardly blame her – it couldn't have been pleasant to have it come so near again so soon.

"Yes?" it asked, facing Caradin.

"What is your name?"

"Shayle," it said.

"Ah, yes. Shayle, of House Cadash. You volunteered to protect your people. They have abandoned you. What do you wish with your life now?"

"Caradin… I remember when you made me." Its voice was the sound of stones grinding together, grating on Solona's ears, and yet somehow fascinating to hear. "I have not had my own mind for… far too long." It turned, examining them all for a moment. Settling facing Solona and Leliana, it said, "I apologize for hurting you. I was not in my own mind."

"It…" Leliana pulled away from Solona's side, cocking her head. "It is all right. I cannot imagine… your apology is accepted, Ser Shayle."

Moving its head in a sort of nod, it turned back to Caradin. "I will help you with your token, and then I will return to the Stone with you. I… I long to see my family once more."

"As do I," Caradin intoned, placing a hand on the stone golem's shoulder in a decidedly dwarf-like fashion. "As do I." Dropping his hand, he turned. "Come. Let us make this token – a crown fit for a king – and then be done with it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fic before I ever played with Shayle, so that's why she doesn't show up in this fic. With the revamping I'm doing to bring the story in line with Inquisition, I figured I'd make this golem at the end, who I already had, be Shayle. It's not as great as her story and her involvement with the party, but it's at least an homage.
> 
> I feel like this is a good place to end this section. No need to write about their journey back while it's happening, and the scene where the Anvil is destroyed, and Caradin's suicide, are really well-done in the game - no need to rehash that, yes?


	44. Return To Orzammar

Leliana sat on the floor in front of Solona.

"Okay, breathe in while I count," she said, and began counting. "One, two, three…" She counted slowly, steadily, watching Solona's eyes move under her lids. "… four, five, six…" A spark of light erupted between Solona's hands, palms facing each other in front of her. "… seven, eight, nine…" The light grew in intensity, seeming to undulate between Solona's hands.

"Ten. Now. Try it now, Solona."

Nothing happened for a moment. But as Solona exhaled, she seemed to swell a little, and then her body began to lift. By the time she inhaled once more, she was several inches off the ground, the light between her hands growing to envelop her whole body. Smiling, Leliana simply watched. This was the first time Solona had been able to do this without collapsing back onto the ground with a very loud oath.

They had returned from the Deep Roads a week before, exhausted but otherwise undamaged after a week and a half of swift travel. The ceremony to crown Harrowmont would take place the next day. They had actually returned amidst a heated debate, Bhelan calling for a vote that very day, no longer willing to wait. Upon hearing their story, Bhelan did get his vote – and the Assembly chose Harrowmont. Bhelan was not happy with this, and chose to try to take the crown by force. He and his few followers, who chose to try to shed blood in the Assembly Chambers, did not survive to see the wrongness of their decision. Now all Leliana and the rest of them awaited was the official ceremony to crown the new king.

They had retired to the inn to sleep in a real bed for nearly an entire day once the drama with the Assembly was over. Upon waking, Leliana and Solona had immediately gone to try to solve the dilemma of the warden's shoe-less feet. Her feet had somehow managed the cold, hard ground without too much difficulty, but it was with much excited anticipation that Solona finally got her hands on a custom-made pair of boots from the armorer who would be replacing the armor she'd lost fighting the broodmother. He was making all-new armor for both Solona and Alistair, as part of the honored treaty – Grey Wardens always received their armor from the dwarves in Orzammar, who mined a metal very much hated by the darkspawn, and who had the gift of enchanting the materials used.

Once that had been taken care of, Solona had gone to the Keeper of Memories, who had indeed kept his promise and found the information the Shaperate kept on the old Order of Arcane Warriors. It was only a little more than what she had learned from the spirit in the Fade, but it was exactly the missing information they'd needed – the techniques for meditation which would allow her to hone her skill and channel her power without losing focus, and without _needing_ her specialized weapon. It involved tapping into her connection to the Fade by degrees, and this – the levitation and "holding" power between her hands rather than inside her body – was the first degree. And only now, a week in, was she beginning to make progress.

A knock on the door broke Solona's concentration, and she fell to the floor, the light – the direct power she channeled from the Fade – going out in a blinding flash. "Ow! Sweet Maker!"

"Sorry! I just wanted to talk." It was Alistair's voice, muffled by the door. Chuckling, Leliana helped Solona to sit up again before going to open the door, revealing a sheepish-looking Alistair in homespun tunic and trousers.

"I'll leave you two alone to talk things over," Leliana offered, knowing the two of them had yet to really discuss their disagreement in the Deep Roads. They'd gotten on fine since then, but they needed to address it – he needed to follow Solona's leadership, even if he didn't know why she was doing something. She and Solona had discussed it at length, of course. Leliana was rather proud of Solona for being able to affect some level of deception, in fact, even if Branka ultimately deceived _her_. But the fact remained that Alistair and Solona seemed to have chosen to pretend as though it hadn't happened, tiptoeing around the subject in a way that would simply not do.

"Please, Leliana. You don't have to go," Alistair began, running his hand through his hair. "I honestly wanted your advice on something. Both of you."

Intrigued, she decided to let them keep tiptoeing for now. Closing the door, she turned and took a seat on the bed. "What did you need, Alistair?"

He sighed. "Well, as you know, Morrigan and I…"

"Knocked boots, yes, we know. And have discussed the implications at length," Solona finished for him, grinning from ear to ear. Leliana rolled her eyes, but also chuckled at the sheer glee on her lover's face.

"Yes, we made love," Alistair corrected her flatly, his face set in a frown. "Only now she won't talk to me." His tone was more pleading now, his eyebrows furrowed in an adorable mixture of concern and confusion. "She leaves the room if there's the threat of us being alone, and she won't even look in my direction when others are around. If I try to bring it up, she leaves. I thought…"

"Oh, Alistair." Leliana patted the bed next to her, rubbing his back absently once he sat. Solona remained seated on the cushions she's been meditating upon before he entered. "You thought perhaps you could be lovers?"

He just shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe? It would certainly be _nice_. I'd like what you two have." He hung his head. "I'd settle for Morrigan liking me enough to talk to me again. I almost miss the constant barbs."

She exchanged glances with Solona. "Alistair," she began, looking back to his hung head. "I'm not sure Morrigan is _capable_ of loving you. Not how you want to be loved, at least."

Lifting his head, he turned knit brows upon her. "What do you mean?"

"Well, think about it," she answered, shifting so she faced him fully. "She was raised alone with only Flemeth as her sole confidante. Flemeth was incredibly cruel to her. She's not comfortable with people, with all the touching normal interaction requires; not comfortable even getting close to anyone as a friend. You managed to get closer than the rest of us, yes? Solona mentioned you telling her about talking Morrigan down from a panic attack. You became close emotionally and physically."

"That's right," he confirmed, nodding his head. "But I still don't see what you mean."

Leliana sighed before continuing. "Alistair, you got closest, and then you lay with her. You may not feel as though you took advantage, but from her perspective, I suspect she feels a little used, like you only tried to get close because you wanted to her body. And now you only want to sleep with her again. You know she loathes the idea of _belonging_ to someone, especially a man."

He bristled in response. "I'd never do that! You know I wouldn't!"

Leliana smiled, sadly. "Yes, Alistair, _I_ know. But _she_ doesn't. She has been taught that people will try to use her for their own gain, and to use people in return. She has never been loved, from her description of her mother. She doesn't know you wouldn't use her for your own ends. In her eyes, you already got what you want. Why would you continue to be her friend? You just want to speak with her so she'll share your bedroll again."

"But… She can't see me like that, can she?"

Leliana shrugged. "I cannot say. She likes both of you far better than she likes me, and would never tell me what she is feeling. But I suspect that is at least part of it."

"So what's the rest of it?" Alistair asked.

"You're scaring her." Solona responded this time, calling both their attention to her. "I've been watching you, Alistair. You look at her like a lost puppy thinking it has found its mother – and then got kicked by said mother. She's never been loved; she has no idea what to do with that." She paused, cocking her head to the side. "And you love her, don't you, Alistair? You love her, and here you are, throwing your love at her, and it's entirely unwanted, and she doesn't know how to handle it. She never learned how to be loved, let alone how to return that love."

"I… I don't know how I feel," Alistair said somewhat lamely.

"Well, whether you love her, or you just want to bed her again, perhaps you should leave her be for now."

"That's right," Leliana cut in, nodding for emphasis. "Let her come to you. You can't force her feelings, Alistair."

"Maybe you're right," he finally agreed, finding his feet. "I… I need to think."

He made to leave, but Leliana stilled him by catching his wrist. "Not so fast. You and Solona need to talk. I'm not letting you dance around it any longer."

Solona's face took on a panicked look, while Alistair just looked confused. "Talk?"

"About your fight in the Deep Roads."

His face paled a little. "But… what's there to talk about? Solona took charge, just like we planned; just like you said!"

After a pause, Solona said, "I was trying to trick Branka, Alistair."

He turned to face her. "You _were_?"

"Badly, but yes, I was. I wasn't going to let her have her prize. You'll notice I _didn't_ let her have her prize. But until I had some way to convince the Assembly we had the support of a Paragon, I needed her cooperation. Then she tricked me back, and much more effectively. I'm not very good at this deception thing…"

"I guess you couldn't have told me at the time, either," he replied, scratching the back of his neck.

Solona snorted. "No, no I couldn't have."

"Right, well… I'll try to remember that you have your reasons, I guess."

"For what it's worth, Alistair, you were right – I didn't like it either. And I didn't like telling you off. But I needed her to believe me…"

"No, I understand, Solona. Sorry for being such a pain about it."

"No need to apologize. I just… might have to do it again."

"Right. I'll remember that." He smiled. "A drink?"

"Definitely."

They left the room, leaving Leliana stunned on the bed. Was that seriously it? _That's_ was the "fight" they had been avoiding? Heaving a sigh, the bard followed them, still wondering at what had been so hard about that short, easy conversation.

* * *

Alistair exited the tavern, not sure what he was going to do but knowing he needed to do some thinking. He was a tad drunk – two flagons of ale in competition with Solona would do that to any man – but not so much that he couldn't walk straight. Checking to make sure his coin purse was still attached to his belt, he began walking toward the merchant booths, thinking maybe he'd wander a bit, maybe buy a trinket to remember his time here in Orzammar.

It was more than a little strange to just go back to life as normal upon their return. He had seen such horrors in the Deep Roads. They had almost lost their lives several times. The image of the broodmother haunted Alistair's dreams, Hespith's description of how she was created enough to make him want to puke up whatever meal he'd eaten most recently. The women in his party seemed even more horrified than Alistair, which he supposed made sense, as he would never need worry about being turned into one of those monsters were he captured. If _they_ were caught, and fertile perhaps, they would have to face spending the rest of their lives as that _thing_ , to forever give birth to more darkspawn, lying in their own waste and unable to move.

And how did they make Laryn pregnant? Hespith had mentioned being violated… Alistair shuddered to think of the possibilities.

Forcefully turning his thoughts to more pleasant things, he turned a corner. Off in the distance, he saw a familiar silhouette: dark hair caught in a bun, porcelain-white bare arms, a man's tunic with the sleeves removed over a wild accumulation of leathers and furs for skirts. Morrigan turned around, and upon seeing Alistair's no-doubt obvious form – he was a third again the height of any dwarf, with blonde hair to boot – she turned and hurried off in the other direction. Sighing in defeat, he turned to the closest merchant's booth and began thumbing halfheartedly through the various daggers and short swords on display.

Did Morrigan really feel like he had taken advantage of her? How could she possibly think that of him? He would _never_ do that!

_"Why be like so many and take a helpless elf to your bed? Why not take someone who at least had the option of denying you? Is it truly so exciting to lie with someone so… subservient?"_

Morrigan's words came to him, from after she caught Ellia leaving his bedchamber. A flash of what that must look like as an outsider came to him: the next king abusing his power, taking a helpless elven servant to his bed; then his complete and total willingness to take _Morrigan_ to his bed without any thought of the girl he'd grown up with, who he claimed to feel such affection for. And at her most vulnerable, when Morrigan was dealing with very severe claustrophobia and panic attack, after just defeating that horrifying creature in battle. She had seemed to enjoy their coupling, but… well, Leliana was right. She only knew how to use people, and to be used by people.

Maybe he could show her that's not what he was? That those weren't his intentions?

Alistair moved from booth to booth, hardly noticing the wares he perused. But just then, something glinted in the ever-present lamplight. Reaching for it, he found a beautiful hand mirror, a good weight in his palm, enveloped with various gems all around it, with a fine ivory handle. _"I snuck up, unnoticed, and stole a hand mirror from her carriage. 'Twas encrusted in gold and crystalline gemstones and I hugged it to my chest in delight as I sped back into the Wilds."_ Cocking his head to the side, Alistair recalled the rest of Morrigan's story, how Flemeth was angry and smashed the mirror to teach Morrigan a lesson. Beauty is fleeting, meaningless, as is love. _"Survival has meaning. Power has meaning."_

"But not love," Alistair murmured to himself. Looking up suddenly, he addressed the dwarven merchant. "Ser dwarf, how much for this mirror?"

The merchant looked him up and down for a moment. "For the Grey Warden who gave us a king and allowed trade to flow with the surface again? You can have it for how much it cost me to make it – twenty silver."

Grinning, Alistair paid the man double, thanking him profusely before speeding off in the direction he'd seen Morrigan disappear. He would try one more time to show her that he cared, and that she did not need to fear him. Surely something like this, something she had so delighted in as a small child, would convince her? It was perfect.

* * *

Solona nursed her third mug of ale. She enjoyed the drink, it was true – the dwarves' brews tasted better than anything she'd tried so far – but more than that she was avoiding going back in to her room to meditate. It was interesting, but it was also boring. She was no longer accustomed to simply sitting on her laurels and not doing anything. She hadn't done that since the Tower, and while she liked to learn, _practicing_ the theory of her magic had always been a thorn in her side. She wanted to just be good at it _now_.

It didn't help that Leliana had the patience of a snake lying in wait. She fully believed that Solona should take advantage of every spare hour she had while they were still in Orzammar and practice the techniques she was reading about, which required Solona to sit for hours doing _nothing_. The mage didn't have the patience for it, but Leliana's seemed inexhaustible – she would simply sit there and _watch_! And if Solona wasn't meditating, then she was reading, for they weren't allowed to even make copies, necessitating memorization. Leliana and Wynne helped with this of course, but only Solona knew what any of it meant, as she was the only one who could _do_ the things properly. So hour after hour she sat on those infernal cushions, willing energy to fill her up in a controlled manner, channeling it directly outside of her and holding it there as her body filled more slowly with the power than she was used to.

What she really wanted to do was drag Leliana to bed and bury her face between the bard's thighs. Barring that, sleeping for an eternity seemed like a fine plan.

Or drinking. Sighing, she took another pull from her flagon. Leliana had scampered off after huffing over her short makeup with Alistair, leaving her to drink with Oghren and Natia. Oghren had made it clear he was coming with them when they left, and while he still wasn't Solona's favorite person, he was a fine warrior who wanted the hell out of Orzammar, so she was fine with it. As long as he understood that he would be put flat on his backside if he so much as leered at Leliana again – by Leliana herself.

Natia didn't really seem to know what to do with herself. The little dwarven woman was now allowed wherever she liked, as a casteless who had performed a personal favor for the king. But she still had no income, and her sister and mother both now refused to see her, as she had participated in the death of her nephew's father. So she drank, nearly as much as Oghren, all the while lamenting that she was as useless as her mother, who had spent the majority of Natia's childhood drunk and inattentive.

Solona was afraid to bring up the prospect of coming with them when they left. As much as she hated the dwarven caste system, it was all Natia knew. She had friends here, family, familiar surroundings – Maker knew all of these things would be a boon after the damage caused by the things they had seen in the Deep Roads. But she was still casteless, harassed at every turn when she wasn't in Dust Town, and her family wouldn't talk to her. Her friends in Dust Town had made it clear they would have nothing to do with her, even after she freed them from the ruthless Jarvia – they seemed to think _she_ thought she was better than the lot of them. Were the familiar surroundings of home really enough to keep Natia here?

Solona resolved to bring it up with her. Right now, in fact.

Only she was prevented from doing so, however, by Morrigan sitting in front of her in a huff. Blinking a few times while her foggy head took in the witch's agitated appearance, Solona finally managed a greeting. "Good afternoon, Morrigan."

"Good day," she answered stiffly. Looking around, she relaxed after a moment, placing her bag on the table next to her. Then she took Solona's flagon directly from her hands and drained it, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand in a manner entirely unlike her.

"Sure, you can have some," Solona said with a smirk. What had crawled up the witch's arse and bothered her enough to make her _drink_?

"That _fool_ of a templar keeps hounding me," Morrigan announced unprompted. "Can he not see that I simply wish for my privacy?"

Solona just stared for a moment. "Um… Perhaps he doesn't?" Her head swam a little. She should have had a meal with all that ale…

"He thinks just because we…" Morrigan trailed off, eyeing Solona through narrowed lids.

"Yes?" Solona prompted, trying hard not to grin. Why did she think it was so funny?

"Never you mind," Morrigan bit back, turning in her seat to observe Natia and Oghren. "Will the short yokels be joining us, then? We will never be able to hide again with Oghren's _stench_ with us at all times."

Solona opened her mouth to respond, but wasn't able to before the door to the tavern burst open, revealing Alistair. He stood with a boyish grin on his face, his chest heaving as if he had just sprinted the length of the Deep Roads. He clutched a cloth bundle in both hands, and he looked over the crowded common room with hopeful eyes.

"Uh oh," Solona murmured, running a hand through her recently-cut hair. It was good to have it short again. "Speak of a demon, and it shall appear."

Morrigan's eyes widened before narrowing once more, this time directed at Alistair. She was on her feet in a flash, grabbing her bag and disappearing. Alistair saw her, though, and followed her to the back, toward their rooms. It only took a few moments for Solona to hear the anticipated shout and slammed door. What she couldn't place was the shatter of broken glass, though. What had broken?

Alistair dragged his feet out to the common room, his head hung low like a sad, lost puppy once more. He took the place Morrigan had vacated across from Solona, resting his forehead on the tabletop.

"Not a word," he mumbled.

Solona smirked. "Going to take our advice now?"

"Yes. You were right. A personal gift was _entirely_ the wrong thing to do. Can we not talk about it and get drunk instead?"

Signaling the serving woman over, Solona said, "Yes. Yes, I would _love_ to get drunk right now. Anything but meditation."

* * *

"How am I supposed to move in this?"

Alistair smirked. "By moving," he replied, keeping his voice even.

He received a punch on the arm in return. "Thanks for that _illuminating_ answer." Solona's voice dripped sarcasm. Alistair just grinned.

"Well, what did you expect? You just have to get used to moving while carrying more armor on your body. Every soldier does it."

He was helping get Solona into her new armor in preparation for attending Harrowmont's coronation. He already had most of his own on, but Solona had never worn anything more than light leather armor with dragon scale attached, and had no idea what she was doing. So he had abandoned his cuirass and started helping her, tightening straps, adjusting the length of the new scabbard for her weapons – she'd received a new scabbard for her enchanted sword and a new staff – and just generally making sure it was all in place correctly. Honestly, he found his own armor half as heavy as usual. But Solona never worn heavy armor and would not know the blessing that having (free!) light-weight dwarven-made armor was.

So he said something about it. "This armor is actually quite light, Solona. Some new special technique, the smith said. And yours in enchanted to withstand you setting yourself on fire!" he exclaimed at the last, grinning while pulling the belt holding her daggers tighter. Air exploded from her lips at the unexpected force around her midsection, but it allowed him to put her weapons up where the smith had fashioned a groove in the metal for the belt. "Plus, they made it so we can easily wear while riding, which is no easy feat. Really, the amount of coin we all have put together could barely buy us these two sets of arms and armor – you should thank the fact that dwarves honor their treaties."

"Fine, fine," Solona grumbled, holding her arms out while he affixed the light metal plates to them. "Is this going to take so bloody long every day?"

He shrugged. "Maybe? It depends on how accustomed to it you become. I'm sure Leliana would help, though."

Solona nodded before taking a leather and metal gauntlet from him and pulling it on. "Well, what do you know – it fits perfectly. And feels petal-soft."

He grinned. "These dwarven smiths know what they're doing. I hear no human smith even comes close to the likes of which can be found down here, except maybe that Wade fellow in Denerim. It's why the wardens are outfitted here."

Solona snorted. "Also because they know more than we do about keeping the darkspawn at bay. Not to mention the Grey Wardens being thrown out of Ferelden all those years ago."

"Yes, well. Plenty of reasons to just come here, then," he responded, handing her the other gauntlet before taking the helm and holding it up.

"No, I refuse," she said, shaking her head and crossing her arms. He raised an eyebrow – obviously, she had forgotten about not being able to move normally in the armor.

"You have to protect your head, Solona." He held it further out for her to take.

"I have done fine _without_ protecting my head, Alistair." She frowned at him. "I need to be able to see what I'm doing, who's coming at me. I can't see anything with that _thing_ in the way!"

Sighing, he dropped his hands, holding it near his waist instead. "Just wear it when you're wearing the hood of your cloak, then. You can't see anything with _that_ on, either, so if a stray arrow catches you with your hood up, maybe the helm will protect you." When she began to protest, he cut her off. "You've already said how a lethal head injury is one you don't think you can survive, Solona."

After a moment of stubbornly crossing her arms, she nodded. Once.

Alistair smiled, holding the helm out once more. "Good. Put it on and we'll just make sure it fits correctly, then, all right?"

Frowning to show her disapproval, she nonetheless took it from him, allowing him to adjust the clever straps around the base of her skull to keep it extra secure. "At least I got my hair cut," she mumbled as he worked, trying to keep still. "This would have been agony with that awful long hair I was sporting. Not to mention how terrible it _looked_."

"I don't know. I thought it was rather fetching," he said, grinning.

She snorted. "It was horrible and you know it! No one else's looked nearly as bad!"

Alistair laughed. "Well, no one else wears their hair so closely cropped to their skull! Except Oghren, I suppose, but he looks terrible no matter what. Of course long hair looks all right with a few inches added! But yours is barely an inch long at your preferred length, Solona. Mine would look terrible, too, if I allowed to grow just a few inches longer than it is."

"Have you ever thought of growing it out?" Solona asked, letting him undo the straps of her helm once more so they could remove it.

He shook his head. "I don't think I could deal with the fuss, to be honest."

"Long hair is very kingly," Solona pointed out. "What about once you're on the throne?"

"Maybe… though I'm afraid I'd look an awful lot like Cailan. And while he was a decent man, I'm not him, and I don't want people seeing him in me."

Solona hummed. "I suppose that's fair. And you're right that you're different from him. For instance, did you know he flirted with me when I first met him? I think he might have wanted to know what it would be like to bed a mage."

Alistair stared, aghast. "Really?!"

Solona shook her head, laughing a little. "Poor little man. I had just discovered I prefer women, and more importantly had recently been held down and forced to have my head shaved and a needle shoved into my face repeatedly. There was no way he would have gotten what he wanted, even had he been the kind to try to take it."

Alistair shuddered. Truly, he pitied any man who might try to force Solona into doing anything she didn't want. He supposed the only way they might accomplish it was to threaten Leliana. Branka had already tried that and almost succeeded. The thought sat uneasily with him, even as they gathered their belongings and headed out of the inn toward the Assembly Chambers, a chill creeping in whenever the image of the bard being crushed by that golem crowded into his thoughts. He vowed to do what he could to keep that from happening; he needed Leliana safe, for himself, and for the future functionality of the sister of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An alternate title for this chapter: "In Which Alistair Is A Dumb-Ass."


	45. Return To Redcliffe, Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh so much smut ahead.

"Hold on, Warden, I need a moment."

"Sure, take your time, Oghren," the warden responded.

Oghren came to a halt at the top of the steps of the entrance to Orzammar. Blinking, he tried not to shield his eyes from the light, not wanting to show his discomfort. He forced himself to look around, taking in the trees, the snow on the ground, the orange color to the sky. Was it sunrise? Sunset? One of those. He supposed he'd know soon enough – either it would get brighter, or it would get darker.

"It's extraordinary," Natia breathed beside him, shielding her eyes with a hand over them. "I feel like I'm about to fall off the world with all that sky up there."

Oghren grunted. "Yeah, it's all right, I guess."

"Is it really _so_ strange?" the redhead he wasn't allowed to ogle asked, head cocked to the side as she considered him and Natia.

"Strange? Strange is your wife turning out to prefer the ladies," he grunted again, laughing at his own joke. "Living in a world without a bleedin' ceiling is… _unthinkable_." He shook his head.

"For once, I agree with Oghren. How do you do it?" Natia just kept standing with that sodding look of _wonder_ on her face. He wanted to reach over and wipe it away. No self-respecting dwarf would be so cavalier with their feelings. Casteless… can't do nothin' with 'em.

"Let's just get moving," he gruffed, hitting her in the arm before heading toward the stairs. "We're losing… whatchacallit? Daylight."

An hour later, he sat astride a beast, Natia holding on to his middle. He had to admit it was faster than walking, but he kept feeling like he was going to fall off, and there was no way he'd be able to do battle with his axe from up here. But he knew he couldn't keep up on foot like the qunari giant, so he shut up, took a swig from his flask, and hauled himself up there, pulling Natia up behind him. He had to admit, having the woman hold on to him felt good. It had been far too long since he'd been with a woman. Maybe he'd try to bed her? It might be nice to have someone to come home to, as it were, in this unfamiliar place.

Resolving to start trying to lay his moves on her, he gently kicked with his heels like he'd been shown, speeding the horse up to catch up with those at the head of the group.

* * *

Natia dropped Oghren on the ground.

"By the Stone – what's wrong with you, woman?!"

"Don't call me 'woman,' Oghren. I have a name. And I'm not interested in your advances; I'd much rather drink and jest with you."

"But… all the other women are _taken_!"

Natia had to laugh. It was just so preposterous – and so like Oghren. "Oh ho ho?! _That's_ supposed to make me want to bed you?" She crossed her arms and cocked out a hip. "Learn some better manners, and maybe a little about romance. And take a _bath_. Then, maybe we can talk." Shaking her head, she left him there, going to meet Solona and Leliana by the stag Leliana had felled earlier that evening.

"That gonna taste as good as it's startin' to smell?" she asked, eyeing the offal which they'd already staked over the fire.

Leliana grinned, holding a piece of meat up while Solona drove a sharpened stick through it. Her hands were bloody – bleeding the thing properly would've taken longer than they had, as it had been felled close to sunset - and in the firelight she looked a bit maniacal. "I hope so. I tireof deep stalker and nug meat. The vegetables we bought from that farmer at the base of the hills yesterday should taste wonderful with it."

"Maker, stop doing that, or I'll be forced to eat it raw," Solona said longingly, also eyeing what had been staked out over the fire. Then her eyes shifted back to Natia. "Nice one with Oghren, there, by the way. What did he say? Aside from all of us being taken."

Natia snorted, going to sit on a log next to Leliana. "He gave the drawer-dropping line of, 'Why don't me and you, uh…' and gyrated his unwashed pelvis toward me. I felt a simple 'no' wouldn't be a strong enough reaction. Plus, we were sparring anyway."

Solona let out a guffaw, to which Natia just grinned. "I'm glad you decided to join us, Natia," Leliana said, smiling.

Natia shrugged. "I had nothing better to do." That wasn't nearly the half of it. It tore her up that Rica wouldn't talk to her, wouldn't let her see little Endrin. In fact, Rica had slapped her hard across the face before picking up her son and walking away. Natia didn't much care about her mother not seeing her, but Rica and Endrin were her life. So she was left with no income, no way of obtaining an income, and when she went back to her house in Dust Town, her friends informed her that she was no longer welcome now that she was too good for them. Where in all the Deep Roads had they gotten _that_ idea?!

So she'd taken the wardens up on their offer. She was outfitted – reluctantly – by the smiths outfitting the wardens, choosing beautiful new blades and good, sturdy boots. She had then been fitted for clothing she didn't even know the need for: a cloak, and some kind of fancy dress for formal occasions the likes of which she had never _imagined_ she would wear. In addition, she got a much better bedroll, a tent – another thing she couldn't have expected a need for – and more food and drink than she'd ever possessed at one time in her life. She had been utterly flabbergasted, prompting her new companions to chuckle and clap her on the back. This would be a new world she was heading into.

And it had been. So much light! It had been approaching evening when they left, thankfully, so there had only been a couple hours of daylight before they had stopped for the night. The stars were beautiful, and she had wanted to stare all night, but she was thankful for the tent when it was time to go to sleep; the thought of sleeping under all that sky was disconcerting, to say the least.

They had emerged to snow on the ground, and she had shivered and pulled her cloak tighter, thankful for Wynne and Leliana thinking ahead – and even knowing what season it was approaching, for Natia did not know of such things. She had taken to staying astride the horse rather well, though wasn't too happy about the need to share with Oghren. Flurries of snow swirled about them from time to time, the wind blowing the powdery stuff up from where it had fallen. It was all so new, the air so fresh. She hardly knew where to begin with it all.

Natia's companions, too, seemed fresh, renewed by the air and the open space and the very fact that they were all _moving_. Even the dog was ecstatic, running ahead and then running back to them, seemingly for the sheer _joy_ of it. She hadn't yet expressed any of her observations, or her wonder. She wasn't yet accustomed to opening up, even to her companions. She knew her new friends to be true and good, but they just didn't understand. This world was alien to her – beautiful, but alien – and to try to describe that to people who found it so delightfully _familiar_ would be an exercise in futility.

So she had taken to spending time with Oghren in the last two nights. But Oghren was only good for a few shallow observations, choosing to drink himself to oblivion before delving any deeper than remarking on the silliness of thinking one might fall up into the sky. And then he had tried suggesting she go to his bed this evening, and she had given up on him, knocking him to the ground with a swift punch to his face. Truly, he was disgusting, and she could hardly blame Branka for leaving him behind and finding solace in another woman.

Shaking her head, she took the meat offered her, holding it over the flames to cook while Solona and Leliana continued butchering the deer. Before long, enough food was ready for them to begin eating, and it was with gusto that she attacked her (delicious!) venison.

* * *

Zevran sat eating his meal next to the fire, letting his eyes wander. Alistair was off hunting with Sten, while everyone else – save Morrigan – was eating with him. Cocking his head to the side, he regarded Morrigan off in the distance, sitting alone by her own fire. As she got up and began heading their way, no doubt to partake in the stew that was being served, a sudden desire for mischief arose in him.

"I bet you all five silver I can get Morrigan to accept a compliment on her looks," he said.

"I… will take that bet," Leliana replied, her eyes narrowed shrewdly. Perhaps she knew something he did not?

"Ha! As will I!" Solona sat next to her lover, eating enthusiastically.

"Watch out, Solona," Zevran said, "or no one will ever compliment your beauty. You eat like a mabari."

Max let out a huff of disapproval.

"You're right, Max – she's far worse," Zevran responded with a grin. The dog put his head back down on his paws, seemingly satisfied.

"Oh, sod off, Zevran," she mumbled around a large bite of food.

"Solona, my love, he is right," Leliana whispered. "Just make sure to use your manners when you are at the arl's table, love."

The mage swallowed heroically. "Thank you, _mother_ ," she responded sarcastically. "I'm well-aware of how to eat at a lord's table! But we are not, as you can see, at the arl's table. We are in the woods and eating with our hands. And after so many days eating nothing but mushrooms and deepstalker… I can hardly help myself with how good this is."

She had a point. Since leaving Orzammar, Zevran had never tasted anything so good as fresh venison and fresh vegetables and fruit. Even bread had never tasted so good after a month of bland food grown outside the light of the sun. The food the last few days had left him remembering what was good about life, restoring him to his former amorous and jovial self, a certain zest he had not noticed had left him springing to the forefront now that they were out in the open air. And springing right into Wynne's bed.

"Who else is in? She will be close momentarily," he hastened the rest of the group. Oghren and Natia agreed to the bet, but Wynne just pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him.

"I will not be part of such a foolish, childish game. And unless she actually tries to kill you, I also refuse to intervene."

"Fair enough." He smiled, laying on the charm as Morrigan walked up and grabbed the last wooden bowl. "Has anyone told you what marvelous eyes you possess, my dear?"

She halted her movement, turning to look at him with cat-like yellow eyes, which _were_ truly marvelous. "Flattery? Do you not tire from these pointless exercises?"

"In Antiva, women are accustomed to being _showered_ in the praise they deserve. Men should worship you at your feet as you pass."

"They don't find that _incredibly_ annoying?"

"They are _Goddesses_ receiving their subjects! Just as you should be. Whatever would be annoying about that?"

" _I_ have no wish to be placed upon a pedestal."

"But you deserve no less. You should be admired by painters, copied by sculptors, exalted by poets. Surely you know that yours is a beauty so exotic it would turn the eye of the Maker Himself?!"

"Well, I suppose I…"

"And there we go." Zevran smirked. "I think you all owe me five silvers, yes?"

"Oh, all right, fine. So I owe you a flagon. Bastard," Oghren grunted, digging in his coin purse.

"Much obliged, ser," Zevran grinned.

"Wait, what?" Morrigan inquired, looking around as all of his companions except Wynne began digging for coin.

"You are a master indeed, Zevran. You win the bet fair and square," Leliana said, tossing him a five-piece. Following it was everyone else's money, Natia and Solona both chortling before digging in to their food once more.

Morrigan just stared for a moment before throwing her bowl at Zevran and hitting him square in the chest. "I hate you all," she announced, stalking back to her tent.

"I… did not think I would get off so lightly," Zevran murmured, watching Morrigan's shapely backside retreat as he rubbed his sore sternum. A pinch to his arm brought his attention back to his lover.

"Do not think you got off easily, young man," Wynne whispered in his ear, causing a shiver of anticipation down his spine. In a voice for them all to hear, she continued. "'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' Expect retaliation, my dear man."

Shrugging, he went back to his meal, ignoring the spark of arousal between his legs at Wynne's words. He had angered many women – and their husbands or fathers. What could Morrigan possibly do that he had not escaped from before?

* * *

"You must meditate, my love," Leliana whispered, trying to fend off the amorous warden.

Solona scowled in response. "I have practiced those techniques every night for two weeks. Tomorrow we will return to Redcliffe. I just want to spend some time with you, alone, before we arrive."

Solona tried to kiss her again, but Leliana held her back with both hands. She was sitting on their bedroll, Solona trying desperately to lay her down and spread out on top of her. "Solona," she giggled, the mage giving up on Leliana's lips in favor of nibbling her throat.

"I just-" kiss "-want-" nibble "-you." Solona finally succeeded in getting close enough to encircle Leliana's waist with both hands.

"Leliana! Everyone else is off to bed," Alistair called. "You decided to trade Solona her watch on a night you wouldn't have done, for some reason I'll never know-"

"Never, ever, can we tell him of our wager!" Leliana hissed in response to Solona's snort of laughter.

"-it's time for you two to stop whatever it is you're doing and come keep me awake."

Solona groaned. "Dammit. What's the point of trading watch if I still can't get naked with you?"

Leliana slipped out from the mage's grasp. "I guess you'll just have to meditate after all, my love," she sing-songed. Then she remembered what they had agreed on regarding their wager over Alistair and Morrigan, and a smirk crossed her features. "Actually…"

Quick as lightning, she had Solona's wrists in her hands, straddling the mage's lap. Pushing and leaning forward, she had Solona on her back in a heartbeat. As the warden's breath hitched, the bard leaned in further, speaking low into her lover's ear. "I believe you agreed to wait for me while I took your watch, yes?" Taking both Solona's wrist in one hand, she reached for her bag, digging until she found the strips of soft suede leather she used specifically for this purpose. Solona's hard breathing and small whimpers sent a shiver of anticipation down Leliana's spine, and it was with an increasingly moist center that she tied the mage's wrists together.

"There," she said in triumph, watching in the low light as Solona's chest heaved, her eyes dark pools with very thin bands of grey – almost white – surrounding them. Reaching down, she undid the laces of the mage's shirt, revealing beautiful, perky breasts, rising and falling, nipples at attention in the crisp near-winter air. Shifting, she undid Solona's trousers, pulling them completely off, along with the mage's smallclothes.

"I want you completely exposed for me, my love," she purred, rejoicing when Solona's head tipped back, her eyes closed and her knees squeezing together. "Stay here, and don't move. You're welcome to sleep, but it is likely to be interrupted." Standing, she regarded her captive: the stiff nipples traveling up and down in the low light, the goose-pimpled flesh, the complete and utter nakedness. Grabbing their blankets, she tossed them over the mage. "I am not completely cruel, however. Enjoy your dreams, my love," she finished with a smirk, exiting the tent and joining Alistair by the fire a short distance away.

* * *

Solona awoke to a most curious sensation in her center. She'd been thinking about all the things Leliana might do when she returned, and must have drifted off. She'd even been touching herself, unable to control the urge as her thoughts went wild, every pull at the leather around her wrists sending a thrill through her body. But apparently it had turned into actual dreaming, from which her head was still foggy as awareness returned.

"I see you were taking care of yourself without me," she heard Leliana purr, and that sensation inside of her intensified a moment. Blinking and lifting her head, she saw her lover atop her, her arm outstretched between them…

"Oh, Maker!" Solona breathed, her legs clenching around Leliana's hand. The bard had woken her up by sliding inside the mage's thoroughly drenched center.

Leliana grinned. "There you are. Not too sleep muddled, I hope?"

"Not anymore! Maker, Leliana, I…"

The bard halted her slow, gentle movements, a frown creasing her brow. "Was it too much? I'm sorry, I should have asked before-"

Solona cut her off with a kiss, her tied wrists settling on the back of Leliana's neck. "No, it is fine. I simply was not expecting it, and was confused as I awoke. In fact, of all the things I was imagining, this was the most erotic of all."

Leliana responded by kissing her again, equal parts teeth and lips and tongue, a growl deep in her throat as she surged forward, pressing in and up with her fingers. Solona whimpered into the bard's mouth, letting her hands fall back above her head as her bard took thorough possession of her. She was laid out, utterly exposed – Leliana had pulled back the blankets – her nipples hardening in the chill air. The feel of Leliana's leather armor against her naked skin, chafing against her aching nipples, set thrills of heat and icy cold down her spine and out to her fingers and toes. It would not take long at this rate for her to be driven to ecstasy, but if Solona knew Leliana, which she did, then that would not be enough for her.

"You were so wicked, touching yourself while I was outside with Alistair," Leliana breathed, moving from Solona's lips to nip at her ear.

"I'm sorry!" Solona hissed, unable to keep from moving her body with Leliana's rhythm. "I couldn't help it, thinking of all the things you would do to me! Thinking of you out there, him none the wiser, me in here, tied up…"

Leliana growled again, biting Solona's shoulder as she thrust in with much more force. Solona muffled a cry, feeling the molten heat pooling in her belly. "You have no idea how distracting it was knowing you were in here, splayed out for me, just waiting for my watch to be over," Leliana murmured in her ear. "My pet, all laid out for the taking, ripe for the plucking, and _all_ mine…"

That did it. Without that beautiful bundle of nerves even being touched, Leliana's words pushed Solona over the edge, and it was all she could do not to cry Leliana's name as colors exploded behind her eyes. Her body went completely rigid, and she found Leliana covering her mouth with a hand to aid her silence. It was almost too much, and with a huff of exhaustion, Solona collapsed, utterly boneless upon the bedroll, a foot or shoulder twitching every few seconds with the aftershocks.

Leliana gave her perhaps half a minute before she began to tut. "I do not think so, my warden," she whispered, quickly pulling her fingers out of Solona's center. Solona inhaled sharply at the sudden loss, but was unable to do more as those fingers replaced the hand over the mage's mouth, the wet fingers pushing in, seeking entrance. "That's right, my pet; clean up the mess you made." Solona whimpered as her mouth was filled with her own sharp taste, her nose filled with her own musky aroma. She lapped it up as though it were the elixir of life.

When she was through, Leliana pulled her fingers away, buried them in the mage's hair, and kissed her hard, plundering the mage's mouth with her tongue. Solona's body was already responding sympathetically, producing a veritable flood between her legs, already ready for more. Leliana left her lips in favor of her neck, nibbling and sucking and licking and biting and kissing her way down to Solona's chest. Solona gasped when her nipple was suddenly seized between Leliana's teeth, the bard alternating between laving it with her tongue and pushing Solona's limits with how hard a bite she could take. Meanwhile, Leliana's hands were everywhere – on Solona's other breast, her hips, her legs, in her hair, nails raking over skin and grabbing anywhere she could.

Finally, something within Leliana seemed to snap, and it wasn't even with words that the bard was looming over her, maneuvering Solona so she was presented in an altogether compromising position – on her knees and elbows, face pressed into her pillow and her rump exposed to the open air. Almost immediately, Leliana pressed inside of her once more, this time with three fingers, inhaling sharply at how wet Solona had become. Growling low once more, she almost savagely began to fuck the mage, and it was all Solona could do to whimper into the pillow, her head held still by Leliana's other hand.

Solona gripped what she could with her tied hands, desperately trying not to scream. Leliana had never gotten quite this rough, and it was making Solona's insides do the most marvelous of somersaults. Another growl, another shove of fingers, and Solona whimpered, her muscles clenching around Leliana's prodding, searching fingers. The mage couldn't keep still, instead pressing back against that hand, doing all she could to take the small bard's small fingers as deep as she could.

Leliana's hand left Solona's hair, but the mage remained, still being absolutely ravished by her lover. It wasn't until she felt her climax nearly upon her once more that she recognized the sounds her lover was making. Realizing that Leliana was touching herself as she pressed inside of Solona was enough to take her over the edge once more, again without any external stimulation, and it was with muffled cries that they managed to climax simultaneously, a feat that had only happened a handful of times.

Crumpled in a heap of limbs and panting, heaving chests, it was some time before Leliana moved to untie Solona's hands. Working together, they rid the bard of armor and underclothes.

"I love you," Solona whispered as a naked Leliana finally slid into her arms.

"And I you, my love," Leliana responded, smiling and pressing a small kiss to Solona's shoulder.

Solona shortly fell into a contented sleep. They would be tired in the morning, but it was well worth it.


	46. Our Heroes Return

Wynne sat astride her horse, bringing up the rear of the group with Zevran. They would be passing through the gates of Redcliffe Castle soon, and they were all of them glad for it. Personally, Wynne looked forward to the privacy of a true room and a hot bath the most. That, and the restocking of their wine and other spirits.

The journey from Orzammar had taken nearly two weeks. It should have gone faster, but winter seemed intent upon coming early, or perhaps it always came early high in the mountains. A storm had blown through, trapping them in their tents for an entire day and night, making the going slow until the snow had melted by midday next. Then the mud had sucked at the horse's feet, and in order to reduce their load the entire group had chosen to walk until the road had dried the day after.

The weather had grown steadily colder after that early storm and subsequent few warm days, making the need for the travel cloaks they had received in Orzammar abundantly clear. Poor Natia and Oghren had been completely baffled by the weather. Wynne supposed she could hardly blame them, as Orzammar was a steady temperature all year long, the only changes happening if one ventured into the Deep Roads. Though even in the Deep Roads, it only ever got mildly cool, as the dwarves had built along lava flows that occurred naturally. Even now the dwarves were not accustomed to the chill, but seemed to bury whatever discomfort they had under boisterous joking and drinking perhaps a little more than was necessary.

In those two weeks, she and Zevran had spoken at length about her spirit companion. He was mostly curious, it seemed, wanting to know the nature of the other entity supplying Wynne with the energy to live. He wanted to know if it had its own mind, if she communicated with it. He wanted to know if it had any feelings on him, on their time together. She wasn't really sure how to answer him in a way he could understand. She was always aware of the spirit, but it was more like knowing a person inhabited a room. The room was her mind, and that room now had another, completely calm and neutral presence, where before she had occupied it alone. It was a presence she knew intimately, and yet it was not like a person; it had no personality, no preferences, no likes or dislikes. It was warmth and joy and peace, and it remained merely a calming presence in the background, sustaining her quietly unless called upon like it was in the Deep Roads.

It perhaps was part of her now, the part of her that was patient and calm in a way she hadn't quite been able to embody before that demon had nearly killed her in the Circle Tower. Zevran found that… difficult to understand.

He was more than a little worried, she could tell, but would not voice his concerns at first, and so she did not know _what_ it was he found disquieting. When she finally coaxed it out of him, he revealed that he worried over how much time she truly had left. "I have not realized until now that there is a downside to your… sagacity," he had admitted.

She had nearly snorted like Solona did. "You mean the fact that I am nearly twice your age didn't tip you off?"

The fact that he did not quip back made it clear how upset he truly was. He revealed that he did not want to lose her, not to war, and not to age. He needed some time to reconcile it, to accept the fact that she simply would not be around forever. Wynne had agreed to give him that time, and to not mention it again until he was ready. Or, at least, not until she had something helpful to say. And she did not think that telling him that she had long-ago accepted her inevitable early death would be in any way comforting at this juncture.

Two figures on horseback exited the gates of the castle ahead, bringing Wynne's wandering attention back to the present as they started riding hard to meet her companions. Solona and Alistair came to a halt at the head of the group, and Wynne decided to maneuver between her companions until she was just behind the two wardens. She wanted to hear what would be said.

As the figures approached, it was obvious that one of them was Bann Teagan – she would recognize him anywhere after their previous stays in Redcliffe. The other she did not recognize, though she could see he held a proud bearing, his long, dark hair whipping out behind a tall, straight back. Was there a third brother in this line she did not know about?

"Well met!" Teagan called as he slowed his horse's canter to a walk. "We hoped you would make it in the next week or so."

"We sent a message from Orzammar," Solona responded, and Wynne could hear the note of concern in her voice. "Did it not arrive?"

Teagan smiled as he closed the remaining distance. "Aye, it did – just yesterday. So you can understand our confusion on your timeline until quite recently."

"Must have been slowed by the same storm we experienced," Alistair muttered, patting his horse's neck as it pawed impatiently at the ground. Wynne was not the only one eager for shelter and a hearty meal.

"Indeed, the runner said she had been waylaid by weather more than once. But you are here, and she is safe and warm, recovering from a minor infection to a cut she didn't know she'd received, and-"

"Is there anything I can do for her?" Wynne interjected, allowing her horse to take a few steps forward.

"The master healer? No, no, she will be fine with our paltry healing arts, Ser Mage," Teagan answered, addressing her respectfully, as she'd never been addressed before, causing a small but persistent heat to bloom in her cheeks. Turning back to Alistair and Solona, Teagan sat up a little straighter, holding out a hand to indicate his companion. "Allow me to introduce Fergus Cousland, rightful Teyrn of Highever – once we right the wrong done by both Loghain and Howe."

The indicated man nodded his head, a small smile gracing his lips. "Well met, Wardens."

"Fergus, this is Solona Amell, Warden-Commander of Ferelden, and the Warden Alistair Theirin."

Fergus's face seemed to brighten at that. "Ah, so this is to be our next king, then?"

Alistair smirked. "Indeed. Though for the love of Andraste, please do _not_ start calling me 'Your Highness.' I'm just a simple warden for now, thank you."

Fergus's smirk nearly matched Alistair's. "As you wish… your Highness."

Solona barked a laugh, accompanied by Teagan, and it was in high spirits that the two newcomers turned and the group rode through the castle gate together.

* * *

"Perhaps I'm being rude, but I thought no trace was found of the Cousland children?" Solona sat at the table in the dining hall, speaking quietly with Alistair before Fergus and the others joined them.

Alistair shook his head. "No trace was found at Highever of the _daughter_ ," he explained, taking a roll of bread from the basket in the center and tearing a large chunk off with his teeth. Solona didn't blame him – they were all tired, hungry, and thirsty, but this meeting couldn't wait. They were to decide what their next move was, and the only concession made to their comfort was serving this meal while they spoke. "Fergus, however, was at Ostagar with all of his father's men. But you remember the fields of battle afterwards – there were survivors, but spread thin, with no organization. I imagine he survived, and made his way as he could, much as we did, only without the 'help' of Morrigan and her mother."

Solona snorted. "Oh, come now, Alistair! They _did_ help, even if the payment was to be saddled with Morrigan…"

Alistair snorted as he sipped his wine, causing a mess. Laughing, Solona hit him on the back before helping him mop up.

"You two are having entirely too much fun," Wynne announced, joining them after doing the bare minimum – in her words – of washing her hands and face. She was the only other from their group allowed in, as a Senior Enchanter of the Circle of Magi and their own wisest advisor. Zevran and Leliana knew a great deal of politics and subterfuge, but this along with their foreignness only made them suspect in the eyes of the arl. Solona had frowned at this, but Wynne had talked some sense into her, making her see the situation from his own eyes. The arl did not trust either of them… yet. But that would likely change, and soon, as they all traveled and fought together.

Solona smiled, taking her own roll. "We have food, wine, and the company of a beautiful woman, Wynne," she announced, indicating Wynne as the maiden of desire. "How could we not enjoy ourselves?"

"Hmph." Wynne rolled her eyes as she took a seat across from them at the small table. Servants came in shortly thereafter, bearing trays of fruit, steamed vegetables, cheeses, and cold meats.

Solona and Alistair dug in as Eamon, Teagan, and Teyrn Cousland finally entered the room. "I trust the food is satisfactory?" Eamon asked, smiling fondly at Alistair as the warden unceremoniously tore a heroic bite of meat from the morsel in his hand.

"I'm afraid I have been unable to teach either of them _any_ manners on the road, your Grace," Wynne quipped, glaring at them as she herself placed her plate back upon the table, only a few pieces of food on it.

The arl's laugh boomed across the empty hall, Teagan and Fergus both grinning at Solona and Alistair's matching sheepish expressions. "It is quite all right, Senior Enchanter. I understand the wardens have a monstrous appetite as it is, yes? I can only imagine coming in off the road makes their mouths water in anticipation. I am only sorry that we cannot delay this meeting." Seating himself and ignoring the food in front of him, the arl continued. "I am told you were introduced to our new companion, Teyrn Fergus Cousland?"

"Please, Eamon, I think we can all be informal here," Fergus interjected, holding up a hand with a smile. "Besides, if Alistair gets to not be addressed by his rightful title until it's bestowed upon him, than I claim the same right."

Solona snorted, shaking her head. She was trying to slow down, but it had been a long time since such a feast had been lain out before her. Perhaps if they had visited Orzammar while trade had been in full force, the fare there would have been richer. But as it was, she had eaten root vegetables, nug and deep stalker meat, or the wild game on the road since leaving the elves. She was happy for things like bread and fruit and the pastries the servants had _just_ entered the room with.

"You two are going to get along well," Solona said, addressing Fergus while hiking a thumb in Alistair's direction.

Fergus smiled, a genuine, warm thing that made him look quite handsome. "I only hope so, as we'll be stuck with each other for many months, at the very least."

"We are meeting," Eamon spoke over them, getting a handle on the direction of the conversation once more, "because we need to decide our next move."

"I don't understand," Solona said with a frown. "We must unseat Loghain, call the Landsmeet and put Alistair on the throne."

Wynne patted her shoulder. "Yes, Solona, but the Arl is speaking of the timing of the thing… correct, your Grace?"

He smiled, inclining his head to Wynne. "Indeed, that is correct. I believe that we have two options. We can remain here throughout the winter, strategizing for the Landsmeet and coming into Denerim in force and prepared for anything Loghain might throw our way. However, it leaves him far too much time to sit and think, to send spies and assassins, and become even more firmly entrenched in the city."

"And our other option?" Wynne prompted.

"You have returned in enough time that we could be in Denerim before the roads are impassable from the snow. This would mean wintering in Denerim instead of Redcliffe, which I normally wouldn't wish to do, but you've already said the darkspawn have retreated back into the Deep Roads for the winter." His raised brows asked them to confirm, and Solona nodded. Smiling, he continued. "We would have the winter to unseat him and prepare our forces. We would have less time to strategize here, but so would Loghain. We would need to leave within a week in order to accomplish this, as most of my forces must travel on foot, and travel much more slowly than a group the size of yours. It will be a nearly three-week journey before everyone makes it to the estate."

"It _sounds_ like you've already decided which is the preferable option," Wynne pointed out, a shrewd look upon her face.

Eamon nodded to concede her point once more. "Indeed, I do, but I want to hear what our wardens think before they know which I would prefer."

Solona swallowed her food, setting the rest of it aside and wiping her hands. Taking a deep breath, she spoke. "The time here would certainly allow us a strategy. It would also give myself and Alistair the time we need to focus on learning the politics of the situation. I probably know more than he does, yet it is all _book_ knowledge; I know Ferelden's history – learned from Wynne herself – but nothing of what has happened in my own lifetime."

"But wintering in Denerim will remove Loghain sooner," Alistair countered. "He needs to pay for what he did. And we need to build support for _us_. The longer we have for that, the more loyal our army will be. That loyalty will be key for when the dwarves, elves, and mages arrive – the race of Men are not accustomed to working in concert with those unlike themselves."

"I agree with Alistair." Fergus's eyes seemed to glow, taking on a slightly red hue, reflecting the embers in the hearth across the room. Solona found it more than a little disconcerting. "Loghain needs to pay, as does Howe. I want my land back, my men, my subjects, and the sooner that happens, the better. The sooner Alistair is our king, the sooner that can happen."

Teagan's eyebrows knit in concern. "I… this isn't all about your personal vengeance on Howe, Fergus. I know you wish to get to him, and I will do everything I can to facilitate that… but timing is important, as the enchanter has said."

"I _burn_ to avenge my parents, Teagan. My wife and son. My little sister wasn't even _found_! Are you telling me I must wait _longer_?"

"Fergus, please," Eaman beseeched, gaining the man's attention. "It is not for nothing but our whim that you must wait. If we strike too soon, it could all be for naught. You must be patient a little longer, even if we _do_ go to Denerim immediately. You will be a wanted man, as the wardens here, and would need to bide your time under my protection at the estate _anyway_."

Taking a deep breath, Fergus's burning eyes seemed to lose their glow, and he smiled thinly. "You are right, of course, your Grace. But my vengeance aside, I still think we should be in Denerim before the snow makes it inaccessible, for all the advantages you listed."

Eamon nodded, then turned to Wynne. "And what of the Enchanter? Have you an opinion on what we should do? Or perhaps some words to the wardens on their conflicting thoughts?"

Wynne's eyes flicked to Solona's. "Solona, I do not think we could learn the current state of politics to a degree that would truly help us in so short a time. Statesmen, nobles, courtiers – all spend their _lives_ pursuing an understanding of it. Your knowledge of history will have to suffice. Anything else you _can_ learn I think can be taught on the road, conversing with these gentlemen present. Alistair will need to learn to lean on his advisors anyway, my dear."

"I suppose…" Solona sat back, taking her glass of wine with her. "I simply do not know what we will be doing. Otherwise, I'm convinced that leaving now is the wise path. So what _is_ the plan, your Grace?"

"It is simple, really. We must garner support for Alistair among the nobles, and find some wrongdoings of Loghain to bring against him. The time in Denerim will allow us to do both of these things."

"We must disgrace Loghain?"

"We must dis _credit_ him, Warden. He is a hero in this country, a commoner responsible for driving Orlais from our lands and putting Maric on the throne. He was awarded the only other Teyrnship as a reward for his loyalty to his king and country. We must make it _plausible_ that he is even capable of treachery of this magnitude – killing the Grey Wardens _during_ a Blight, and killing his king."

Solona nodded. "I see. That makes a great deal of sense. And if we keep our strategy that simple, then poor Alistair here _surely_ can't fail." She winked at him, winning a slap to her arm for her efforts.

Eamon chuckled. "I'm glad to see you so comfortable in this new role, Alistair. I hope the transition to ruling is a smooth one."

They continued to talk into the night, Solona and her companions not allowed to go bathe or bunk down for the night until the castle was quiet.

* * *

"Dwynne, open the door!"

"Why? You gonna try to pay me to risk my life for those _humans_ again?"

Sten hummed low in his throat, looking down upon his _kadan_ as the human woman looked back up at him. He curled his hands into fists and stepped up next to her, ready to break the door down at her word.

"No," she called with a smirk. "Because I have a five-hundred-pound-" Sten shook his head. "No?" she whispered.

"Seven," he grunted.

"A seven-hundred-pound male qunari warrior here, ready to tear down your door and ransack your house for his sword."

The lock on the door clicked after only a moment of silence. Smiling, she opened it, heading in and moving aside so Sten could do so as well. Behind him, the male dwarf who had accompanied them from the dwarven mines came through the door, shutting it behind him.

"There, I let you in. Now talk," the dark-haired dwarf said without preamble. He reeked of alcohol, even more so than the dwarf who was Sten's companion. Flaring his nostrils in distaste, Sten crossed his arms, peering down at the drunken little man.

"We were told you purchased a qunari blade. It would be large, large enough for Sten here to wield. It is quite important to him, and we would like it back," the mage explained, standing in much the same stance that Sten himself had adopted.

The dwarf's beady eyes looked Sten up and down. "I don't…" He trailed off as Sten unfurled his arms and clenched his hands into fists. "I ain't _giving_ it to ya," he finally grunted, his eyes moving back to the mage warden.

"I will not _pay_ for my _Asala_ ," Sten replied, baring his teeth a little. He did not intend to actually _bite_ the stench-addled dwarf like an animal, but he found that the move was often intimidating.

"Well _I_ paid for it, ya lumbering giant," the dwarf said hotly, glaring up at him. "So what do you propose?"

Before either Sten or his _kadan_ could answer, the fire-haired dwarf pushed forward, swinging a fist out that landed directly in the middle of Dwynne's face. "Ya nug-humping loony! Sten could tear your arms off without need of a weapon! You've been out in this blasted sunshine too long…" Standing with his fists on his hips, he continued. "Just give him his sodding sword, so we can go _drink_. You know as well as I do that when you buy stolen property, sometimes you come out of the deal without a profit. And it's a _qunari_ blade. Don't try actin' like ya didn' know it was stolen."

Scowling up from the ground, cradling his nose, Dwynne still tried one last move. "I'd take the sword he's _got_ for the sword he _wants_."

Sten tilted his head to the side. The sword he had was a fine weapon. But it was not his _Asala_. With a firm nod of his head, he removed the sword from his back, resting the tip upon the ground. "I would abandon this weapon anyway. Give me my _Asala_ , and I will abandon this weapon _here_ , in your home, rather than the armory at the castle."

Several minutes later, his sword was in his hands, and he felt a peace he had not felt in months. Taking a deep breath, he secured the weapon in the sheath for his previous sword – it would need to be adjusted, but it was a satisfactory fit for now – and exited the house.

"Well," his _kadan_ spoke, scuffing her boot in the dirt. "You have your sword. And it looks as though you have indeed found your soul. Will you now go deliver your report to your _arishok_?"

Sten considered her for a moment. She was _seerabaas_ , it was true. But she was also a warden, and had shown his initial judgment of her to be false. She was a fine warrior, despite being a woman, and she would be the one to bring the archdemon to heel. She was a contradiction, and she would need his help despite all her successes. "Perhaps I will have a more… complete report for him if I stay."

The mage warden knit her brows for a moment before her expression began to change, and soon she was grinning. Laughing, she clapped him on the arm – something he would only allow his _kadan_ to do – and the fire-haired dwarf on the shoulder. "Come on, Oghren, let's go celebrate, shall we?"

"It's about _time_ ," the dwarf gruffed, walking out in front of them.

"Enjoy your sword, Sten," she called back to him, stopping for a moment as she looked at him. "Let me know if you need anything else."

As she ran after the dwarf, Sten just considered her. He would never understand these people fully. But she had found his sword when he could have searched for a thousand years and not found it. He was in her debt, and it was a debt he would repay. And if it took his life? Then he died with his _Asala_ in his hands. No qunari warrior c1ould ask for more.

* * *

Solona felt herself her rear leave the ground. The levitation was merely a trick to help her concentrate her attention while funneling power from the Fade. Between her hands, she held the golden ball of power. She had gotten rather good at this part. But now it was time to move forward, to take the step – traveling into the Fade at will, and returning to herself afterward. Theoretically, she should eventually be able straddle the Veil, existing in both places at once and being aware of both; but for now, she must know how to get there and how to come back. She couldn't keep losing consciousness and coming to a week later half-starved.

Leliana sat upon the bed, stroking the ruff of Max's neck and watching Solona patiently. She was on-hand should something happen, but agreed to otherwise remain an observer, as Solona found her more active help to be grating. Perhaps because Leliana didn't actually know what it felt like to constantly fill herself up and then let the power drain, over and over. The bard didn't know how _difficult_ it was to fight what now seemed natural to Solona, to simply let the power spill into her, to fill her special weapons; to fill herself up and burst into action. The Fade was a place of action, a place where past and future blended into present, a place where one simply _did_ , consequences not a concern. It was _difficult_ to hold this power within herself while retaining her awareness, her _mind_ , her ability to reason. And Leliana did not truly understand this. None of them did, not even Wynne or Morrigan.

So instead of trying to explain, Solona simply asked Leliana for her help in a different way – by playing music softly, to give Solona something to listen for when she was ready to return to this world. The bard would wait a few minutes after it was clear Solona had crossed through the Veil, then begin playing. Leliana had heartily agreed, and had the lute Solona had gifted her ready for when it was clear Solona was in the Fade.

The Power was coming through the Veil now, funneling into her body; it called to her, begging to be allowed to expand and fill the mage completely. Solona had become rather good at not giving in, however, and only permitted a little more through. The ball brightened, the power available to hold her afloat intensified, and she became aware of an opening in the Veil around her. Closing her eyes so she could visualize this opening, she reached for it, sending her conscious mind through the door she "saw."

As soon as she passed through, the ground fell out from under her, and she collapsed, aware of the world around her no longer.

* * *

"Solona!"

"Leliana?" Wynne's voice inquired from the hall, apparently just passing by. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes!" she called, on her knees by the collapsed form of her lover. "Everything is fine. We are simply practicing more difficult meditation techniques!"

Leliana wasn't _truly_ concerned for Solona. They had discussed what it might look like when she passed through the Veil, and both knew that this might happen, that the mage might lose consciousness. In fact, it was the expected outcome. But it was still disconcerting to see. She was a little concerned, yes – the last time this happened, Solona had been unconscious for nearly a week. But their hope was that the bard could coax her lover back to this world, provide an anchor that did not exist in the Fade. The Fade had music, yes, but the hope was that as soon as Solona realized she was hearing _Leliana's_ music, her hyper-focus would abate and she would remember herself and what she was supposed to be doing.

So Leliana sat on the edge of the bed, took up her lute, and began to play.

* * *

Solona walked briskly. Smiling, she hummed along to a nameless tune. She wore trousers and a sharp vest, her sister and brother skipping along beside her.

"Where are we going again, Solona?"

"Fishing!" she answered brightly, smiling to be with them. She didn't know why she was so happy to be here – she had spent every waking moment with each of them since they were born. But she loved her siblings, and enjoyed teaching them how to do things. Teaching had always been something she enjoyed…

Tilting her head to the side, Solona wondered at the image of a small blonde boy, sitting with his mage's robes pooled between his knees. Robert's robes had always been a bit too big for him. He was small for his age.

"Wait… where is Robert? I should be teaching him how to keep himself warm in the cold."

"Who is Robert?" her sister inquired, stopping and tilting her head in confusion.

"I… a little boy I used to mentor… in the Tower."

"The Tower?" her brother asked, still skipping around her, now in circles, as she had stopped moving.

"Yes." She eyed her sister. "You are not real." It all crashed in on her, and her surroundings suddenly shifted. Before her instead hovered a demon in the form of a half-naked woman, great horns spurting from her head. The grassy field was now the nebulous substance of the raw Fade. Narrowing her eyes, Solona regarded the demon. "Were you simply waiting for me?"

"You succumb so easily when you first enter our realm," the demon responded, her voice sultry, sending a shiver of both cold terror and hot lust down Solona's spine. "Why not make it easier on yourself? Accept my offer, and I will give you anything you want. Far more than the bard with the fire hair ever could-"

Solona interrupted the demon with a blast of pure white light from her open palm, erasing it from existence. Souls did not truly die in the Fade, but they… broke down, became part of the raw Fade itself. Solona did not feel guilt for reducing this being down to its most basic components in this place. It should have learned from its fellows that she was a force unlike any it had ever encountered, and that she would do such a thing to it.

She did not have the time for the paltry offerings of a lesser demon.

Looking around, Solona set off in a random direction. She was here, conscious, and she wanted to use the time she had, take advantage of the opportunity to truly _use_ her power, to _feel_ it course through her.

She began humming again as she walked, long, powerful strides that made her legs feel strong. She was happy, powerful, and she was going to find Leliana and make love to her until neither of them could move.

"Leliana…"

The tune! The tune she was humming! She could hear it, as well! Her memories of why she was here, how she had gotten here, bloomed within her, making the manic hyper-focus that overtook her in this place subside. Taking a deep breath, smiling, Solona closed her eyes, focused on the music, and once again reached for the door she visualized behind closed lids…

… and opened her eyes with a gasp.

"Solona!"

Leliana was at her side in a flash, her lute now forgotten on the bed.

"Leli! I'm fine, I'm fine! Let me sit up!" she laughed, exhilarated rather than drained. Usually, after a foray into the Fade that was not in her dreams, Solona was exhausted.

"You warned me you would likely lose consciousness, but still I was unprepared for the sight of you _crumpling_ like that."

Holding out her arms, Solona gathered the redhead into her lap. "I'm sorry, Leli. I can't imagine how frightening that would be. I'm sorry to put you through this, just so I can _practice_."

Snuggling into her throat, Leliana gave her skin a small kiss. "I understand the need, my love. It is just unsettling to watch. But we were successful!"

"Indeed, we were!" Solona exclaimed, nodding and grinning. "A demon tried to capture me, but I recognized it almost immediately. I defeated it easily. And then your song guided me back."

"Well," Leliana responded, pulling back with a wicked glint in her eyes. "Perhaps we should celebrate your success, _non_? Wynne will want to hear. Though… I suddenly have the urge to be carried off to bed."

Her grin widening, Solona stood with the bard in her arms, shooing Max away as she deposited the bard atop the blankets. "I think Wynne can wait a moment," she said, smirking and pulling off Leliana's boots. The bard grinned right back. "Don't you?"


	47. A Chore Forgotten

Morrigan stalked the halls. The arl's household would be leaving in three days' time; several servants with a company of soldiers accompanying them had left just that morning to make the estate ready for his arrival. She was beginning to worry, and though she promised Solona she would not bring it up again, she simply must see if the arcane warrior intended to keep her word regarding Flemeth.

She found both wardens outside, practicing with their swords, laughing and making jokes, sweat pouring from them both. Rolling her eyes, Morrigan walked right up between them, interrupting their practice. Ignoring Alistair as had become her custom, she addressed Solona only. "When were you planning to address the issue of my mother? We are set to travel to Denerim in _three days_ , Solona."

Solonsa immediately looked guilty. "I… shit. Somehow I forgot about that in all the excitement."

Morrigan's heart sank. She wasn't going to do it. There was not enough time left, and the Blight was more important, and Solona was going to go back on her word. She never had yet, even getting Sten his beloved sword, but she apparently couldn't do this crucial thing for Morrigan. _I never should have trusted anyone else with this knowledge…_

"What's wrong?" Alistair asked, coming around to stand next to Solona. In her panic, Morrigan let her eyes meet his, and found only concern there. It terrified and disgusted her in equal measure, mostly because it made her heart kick in excitement. Turning from him, she marched back toward the castle, unable to take either Solona's incompetence or Alistair's pity right at the moment. Ignoring Solona's pleading call for her attention, Morrigan abandoned them in the courtyard, moving swiftly to her room before changing her form to her customary raven. She needed out, needed her privacy. She needed to come to terms with her shortened lifespan, for now it was clear that she would be Flemeth's prey.

* * *

"What in the Maker's name was that about, Solona?"

She hung her head before answering him. "Her mother… she learned her mother's secret to eternal youth."

Alistair lifted a brow. "And why do I get the feeling I won't like anything about it?"

Solona didn't even laugh. It must be very serious, indeed – Solona always laughed at his bad, ill-timed jokes. "Her mother… well, she produces a daughter, teaches her the skills necessary, and then… overtakes her body."

Alistair blanched, mouth gaping like a fish before he managed to form words. "And what happens to the old body?"

Solona finally looked up at him, shrugging. "I suppose the daughter inhabits _it_ , and then it withers away and dies. It may be that the demon allows Flemeth to possess, and a normal soul would be unable to abide in another body – I do not know." She paused, meeting Alistair's gaze with serious slate-grey eyes. "I promised Morrigan I would kill her mother, Alistair, all the way back at the Tower. I couldn't imagine any other answer would do, not for something like that. And yet somehow, with everything that has happened… I forgot, like a complete _idiot_."

"I suppose it can't wait until after the archdemon is dealt with?"

Solona shook her head. "I don't think so. Morrigan is here with us _now_. Her mother is none the wiser as to Morrigan's knowledge, and Morrigan will have the proper skills to make possession of her body optimal once she returns to her mother. Besides that, Morrigan specifically said she couldn't be there when I kill Flemeth – she does not trust her mother to not simply take possession of her anyway, leaving Morrigan's soul to wander forever in the Wilds."

Alistair didn't even know what to think. The entire proposition was so horrifying that he couldn't truly wrap his mind around it. Not even the Broodmother was so horrific as one's own mother using you in that way. So he turned to pragmatism, asking the only practical question he could think of. "Why didn't you bring it up until now?"

Solona sighed, starting back for the barracks, where their borrowed practice equipment was stored. "She asked me not to. But seeing as she brought it up in front of you, I figure it's safe to share now. She had to know you'd be interested in what she meant."

"Hmm," Alistair hummed, noncomittal, letting his friend lapse into contemplative silence beside him.

Once they stowed their gear, he spoke up once more. "So what's the plan, then? We _are_ taking care of Flemeth, aren't we? We must. No one should live with that kind of fear."

"I agree," Solona replied. "But do we have the _time_? The entire household leaves in three days. We can't make it to the Wilds and back in that time, let alone deal with the legend of the Witch of the Wilds while we're there."

"What if we lagged behind?" Alistair offered. "Tell Eamon we have a Grey Warden chore to take care of at Ostagar and we'll meet him a few days after he arrives. Or! We could meet up with them en route – our horses will beat his foot soldiers' pace any day!"

"That might work!" Solona said, perking up a little. "Do you think Eamon would take such a paltry excuse to leave the group?"

Alistair shrugged. "We can work on the excuse, make it more plausible. But…"

"What?"

"Do you really think Leliana will be okay with this?"

"Shit… No, she most definitely will _not_ be happy about it."

"Well," Alistair said, heading toward the door while catching her arm. "No time like the present to disappoint her, yes?"

He just chuckled at the groan she gave him in response.

* * *

"No. Absolutely not. We cannot deviate, Solona!"

"But her mother is going to _kill_ her, Leli!"

Leliana frowned, facing Solona. Alistair was waiting out in the hall, not wanting to abandon Solona, but also knowing not to get involved in their domestic dispute. Leliana knew this, and seemed to keep her voice in check accordingly.

"Solona, how can you even have _considered_ this request?" Leliana hissed. "To fight, and _kill_ , the Witch of the Wilds?! She's insane to think we could do it, or that we _would_ do it!"

"Leli…" Solona wracked her brain, settling on a different angle. "Leli, who knows _how_ her mother inhabits the bodies of her daughters? Perhaps she drugs her, or attacks her. Or perhaps she will hunt Morrigan down and force a confrontation of wills, rip her into the Fade and leave her there to wander for eternity. I cannot even imagine living in the kind of fear Morrigan must be dealing with. It's beyond cruel."

Leliana narrowed her eyes. "That is not our problem right now, Solona. It is _her_ problem. _Our_ problem is the Blight, and nothing else."

Solona cocked her head to the side. She wasn't sure if she should bring this up, but it was true, and her lover would know that. "Marjolaine wasn't our problem either, Leliana. Neither was Sten's sword. And yet he is whole with it, and you are free of Marjolaine – _we_ are free of her. What are we fighting this Blight for, if we leave our friends behind? Our _loves_? Yes, Morrigan did not wish to help you, but she did anyway. And I am not even asking you to help, Leliana – but I'm going, and so is Alistair. I'm _informing_ you of our intentions." _Really? I just said that? Balls, I'm really going to get it now…_

Leliana pursed her lips, eyes narrowed, arms crossed over her chest. The bard's silence, coupled with that _look_ , let Solona know just how deep a hole she had dug for herself with her last sentence.

"Fine. Do what you want. Clearly you aren't interested in my thoughts on the matter. But I swear, that woman is not as she seems. She has some trick left yet." With that, Leliana turned and walked out the door.

"Leli, wait!" Solona called, but to no avail. Leliana would not stop or turn around, and Solona didn't know what to say should she chase the bard down, so she let her be.

"I… take it that didn't go well," Alistair ventured, stepping into the room.

Shaking her head, Solona stood from her perch at the end of the bed. "Come on, Alistair. Let's go inform the others. I'm not asking anyone to come along, but they should at least know what we plan."

* * *

"I… don't understand." Eamon's knit eyebrows were almost comical. They had that look older men's brows tended to get, all long and woolly, overgrown. "You have a… chore? What could be more important than getting to Denerim?"

Solona nodded. "Yes, Your Grace. It was something we always meant to do, and now that we _know_ the darkspawn horde has withdrawn from the surface for the winter, this is our last chance to head back toward the field of battle to take care of it." All of it was true. She wasn't technically lying. Let _him_ infer that it was some warden chore, and not a personal favor to Morrigan.

"We'll be able to catch you up before you even make it to Denrim, Eamon," Alistair added, his face hopeful like a boy's.

"All right, I suppose… Speak with the quartermaster about any supplies you need. Will all of you be going?"

"We haven't informed the rest of our companions of it, yet, so we're not sure. Some may decide to accompany you straight to Denerim," Solona answered. Their next stop was, in fact, to ask the rest of their companions over the next meal.

"And when will you be leaving?" Eamon asked, scratching his beard in thought.

"I… suppose as soon as we can. Perhaps in the morning?" Alistair offered. They really hadn't thought this through well enough before coming to the arl…

Eamon's eyes twinkled. "Perhaps you should speak with those who are better at making plans among your number," he suggested, chuckling at them as they both took on similar sheepish expressions. "Very well. Do what you must while you still have the opportunity. Just… be careful. If you have not met with us before we reach Denerim, I will wait three days before I send people to find you."

Solona nodded. "Fair enough. Though I highly doubt there will be a need, Your Grace."

Smiling, Eamon nodded, turning to answer a question of Isolde's after dismissing them. Hurrying away, Alistair bent his head toward her conspiratorially.

"They say she's with child," he whispered.

Solona choked on a laugh. "How in the Maker's name did you hear that?!"

"Ellia told me! The servants are all abuzz. They went ten years without having another child, and then the moment Connor's gone, they say she's pregnant again!"

"Wait… are you sleeping with that elven woman again?" Solona was incredulous, actually stopping to address him. "Alistair, you can't hope Morrigan has feelings for you while sleeping with someone else!"

"What?! No! It was just the once! Well, twice…" She narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't look at me like that! We're friends! We were just _talking_!"

Solona glared another moment before continuing on their path from the courtyard to the castle. "Just be careful, Alistair. You can't… play with people's hearts, or even _look_ like you are. Morrigan is not the forgiving type. You need to decide who you want to be with, rather than throwing yourself at women and seeing where you stick."

"And how did you become so wise in love, hmm? You've only been with Leliana, and only for a few months. It's not like you learned all this from her."

Solona smirked. "Some from her; she is a story-teller, after all. But I've also read all the stories, and I have a family in my fellows in the Circle. I've watched romances blossom and fail, and I've seen what happens when one is careless even in _friendships_. It's a very good way to make someone feel betrayed, and to never trust you again."

"Well, I'll keep that in mind." After a minute or so of silence, he added, "We really are just friends…"

Solona clapped him on the shoulder. "I believe you, Alistair. But you know Morrigan – if you ever want her to trust you, _she_ has to believe it, too."

* * *

The wolf sat by the stream, her double coat of fur keeping her very warm in the chilly evening. Winter would be here soon. The weather was getting colder for the most part, though she had experienced a day or two of unseasonable warmth. And it was not yet cold enough for the snow that occasionally fell to cling to the ground.

The light breeze made her fur sway as if to a waltz. The wolf closed her eyes, seeming to relish the feel of the breeze. She lifted her head and sniffed, sensing something on that breeze. Opening her eyes and turning her head sharply, she stood as a two-legged creature approached.

When she saw who it was, there was a flash of light, and standing in the wolf's place was a very naked Morrigan. "What do you want, _Leliana_?" the witch asked, acid seeming to drip from her tongue.

Leliana tossed the bundle she had in her hands, forcing Morrigan to catch it. "I've come to inform you that you won."

Morrigan raised a single brow as she unfurled the clothing Leliana had brought her. "Excuse me?"

Leliana folded her arms over her chest. She was in no mood for games. "You won. Solona and Alistair, along with several other of our companions, I'm sure, will be taking it upon themselves to kill Flemeth, at _your_ request."

To her credit, Morrigan seemed genuinely surprised. But her words weren't anywhere _near_ grateful enough. "As she should. She gave her word, after all."

Leliana scoffed. "As if you put stock in such things? If you had not been running from the danger Flemeth posed, I do not think you would ever have stayed as long as you have, nor helped with Marjolaine, or free the Tower from the blood mage's hold, or anything else we have done. Even though I assume you gave your _word_ when you joined Solona and Alistair that you would help them in what way you could."

Morrigan narrowed her eyes, still not bothering to pull her clothing on, and also not bothering to deny Leliana's accusation. "So why are you here, if you think so little of me?"

Leliana uncrossed her arms, resting her hands on her hips instead. "Leave them alone," she warned, her voice low. She knew the witch wouldn't really feel threatened by her, but she knew more than one way to skin a wolf. She was not afraid of Morrigan.

"Leave… _who_ alone?"

"Solona, and Alistair. I know you slept with him, Morrigan. And I know you're now avoiding him. So _keep_ avoiding him. And leave Solona be, as well. They do not need you meddling in their lives. Leave them _alone_ , especially Alistair. Stop toying with his heart."

"And did you plan to back up that threat with something?"

Leliana raised an eyebrow. "I have many skills, Morrigan. I may not be a mage, but I could surprise you with how hellish I could make your life while you are among so many people." Cocking a hip, she turned and walked back toward the trees. She didn't mention just how many poisons she knew how to concoct.

Suddenly, she found herself face-first on the ground, the telltale tingle of electricity traveling directly from her rear to her extremities. It didn't hurt, quite, but neither was the sensation pleasant. Pushing herself up, she turned over, glaring at a smirking Morrigan. Frowning, Leliana regained her feet, taking several deep breaths to rein in her desire to throw her fist _directly_ into Morrigan's face. Turning and walking away was honestly one of the hardest things she had ever done, but as she melted into the trees, she grinned, an idea formulating in her mind. _I know just the poison to make…_

* * *

Solona sat by the fire in a small clearing, facing toward the trees of the Wilds, Alistair by her side. They had reached the outskirts of the Wilds that morning, and the going was now somewhat slower. But as both of them had been this way before, they knew they should reach the clearing with Flemeth's hut before midday next. Whether Flemeth would still be there or not was another story, but as she was expecting Morrigan to return when the Blight was dealt with, they didn't think she would relocate.

It was strange being back here, where everything had started. The woods felt familiar, like an old home, even though Solona had only spent perhaps a week here. It felt like so long ago, too – so much had happened, so much had changed. She was an arcane warrior, she and Alistair were the best of friends, she had Leliana… All things that were not true in the early spring when she had last been here. She had realized for the first time just how free she would be now that she was a Grey Warden, able to practice magic outside of the Circle. She had looked upon Duncan with a new sense of awe when he brought her here, as he had the power to take her away from her prison.

But it was all for naught. Duncan had died, along with everyone else, and she had let herself become numb to it, instead wallowing in her discomfort, pitying herself for being alone with the witch and the templar, only a dog for company. It was more pleasant this time around, generally, that much was definitely true. She had everyone she had come to know as a travel companion with her – except Morrigan, of course. It was a little strange that almost everyone she truly called friend was with her in this place where it all began.

In the end, all had agreed to come rid the world of Flemeth. It wasn't a wise course of action; far from it. They were needlessly putting themselves in danger, particularly herself and Alistair, as the two remaining wardens in Ferelden, the only ones who could kill the archdemon (though they still had no idea _how_ ). Solona had tried to soothe her guilt by asserting that she had thrown herself into danger time and again during their journeys for others, but a quiet voice remained. It told her that all those times had been in service of their mission, to secure the support of entire armies. It said that _this_ mission, to slay Flemeth, was needlessly dangerous, and only secured the loyalty of _one_ person.

The voice sounded like Leliana's.

And it was right, of course. But when she and Alistair had put it to the others, they had agreed to come, to increase the wardens' odds of success. They had fought abominations before, after all. And while Morrigan was not well-liked by anyone, she had become far less acerbic of late, and had saved each of their lives in battle multiple times, whether directly or indirectly. And, as Wynne had put it, "No one deserves to live in that kind of fear. It would be cruel to ask her to, especially after you promised you would do this _one_ thing she cannot do for herself." While the others agreed with Wynne, Sten and Oghren both simply wanted the fight; Sten because he would follow his _kadan_ into battle, and Oghren because, well… he liked to fight.

Yet Leliana's voice insisted on sounding in her mind, warning her that she was being foolish.

And that was all of Leliana's voice she heard. For the past two days and nights, Leliana would not speak to her. When Solona went to bed the first night, she found Leliana asleep in her own bedroll on the opposite side of the tent from Solona's, as they used to be before they had become lovers. Solona hadn't been stupid enough to wake her, or to drag her own bedroll to be next to Leliana's, instead simply going to bed, alone. Even Max was confused, finally snuggling up next to Leliana when she started shivering. It had killed Solona to see, but there was nothing she could do; Leliana was angry with her, and there was nothing Solona could do to change it for the moment. She had made her choice. She would just have to deal with the consequences.

It hadn't gotten any better. Leliana simply would not speak to her. The first few times Solona tried to strike up conversation, the bard would speed up her horse and canter away. The warden stopped trying after that, resolving to talk in private, to set things right. Instead, she had gotten a silent lover in a separate bed. Again. And she woke up and packed her things before Solona was even awake the next morning, spending the entire day dodging Solona in exactly the same fashion.

"Is Leliana angry, do you think?" Alistair asked out of the blue.

Startled, Solona turned to him, cocking her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"Well, she won't talk to me. We've been on watch together the last two nights, and she didn't say a word. Eventually she just got up and started doing patrols around the perimeter until it was time to wake our replacements."

Solona smirked. "Well, I suppose it's not just _me_ , then. That's… kind of a relief, actually." At his questioning look, she clarified. "She hasn't spoken to me since I told her we were going, not even when we're alone. She even set her bedroll up away from mine. She won't let me near her."

He whistled low, shaking his head. "Yeah, okay, so she's not happy. With either of us, apparently."

"I suppose this is a foolish venture. I understand that. But… I gave Morrigan my word, and I do believe that now could be my last chance to keep it."

"And Morrigan is not someone you want pissed at you," Alistair agreed, smiling cheekily at her.

"I just… my own mother turned me over to the templars, Alistair. I have this tattoo because of _her_. I know what it's like, to think your mother loves you, and then have her show her true face. It's the cruelest of betrayals, I think, even more so than a lover or sibling, though of course I wouldn't know for sure. And my mother feels no remorse, as far as I know – just as Flemeth likely does not, either."

Alistair considered her for a moment. "You know, I never thought about it like that, but you're right. My own experience of my mother is nonexistent – she died giving birth to me. But the parental figure I _do_ have is at least warm, and makes his affection for me known. I can't imagine what it would be like to realize your parent disdains you."

Solona made a frustrated sound. "And on top of all of that, it is terrifying to think of Flemeth's planned fate for Morrigan, whether or not Morrigan is personable. And, honestly, Flemeth is the reason Morrigan is how she is – _that_ is incredibly cruel, as well, to leave her with almost no ability to mix with the rest of society. Morrigan can't hide in plain sight the way my uncle Malcom did. She is relegated to a lonely existence in the woods, or being caught and sent to the Circle because of her inability to play well with others." She paused, turning back to her friend and catching his gaze. "I pity her, Alistair. She had the potential for something with you, with all of us, and she actively sabotages herself at every turn. I pity her, and I _want_ to do this for her, even if she will not express her gratitude for it."

Alistair sighed, looking away. "I admit I was somewhat hopeful that she would see me as someone she could love, who could love her back, after all this. But I suppose you're right. Her nature won't change, not after being taught to not trust anyone and then finding out the one person she _did_ trust had planned to… 'kill' does no justice to what Flemeth plans for her Morrigan."

Solona nodded in agreement. "I know. It's… it's on par with what Branka did, and yet so much more horrifying."

Alistair snorted. "And _personal_. Branka at least had an end-goal, something to aspire to, before it ate her sanity. Flemeth planned this from the moment she decided to get pregnant. She had always intended Morrigan be _cannibalized_ like this."

Solona sighed. "Well, I'm glad we're doing this, even if my guilty conscience won't leave me alone about 'unnecessary risks'." Getting up, she offered him a hand. "Come on. Our watch is over, and we need some sleep. We should arrive mid-morning tomorrow."

Unseen, Leliana stared toward the wardens' silhouettes cast upon the tent, tears streaming unheeded down her cheeks.

* * *

"Solona, wake up."

Solona tried to open her eyes, but they seemed glued shut. Max was having puppies, and she had to get up to help the poor dog, but she couldn't seem to move-

"Solona!" A hand shook her by the shoulders, jostling her awake. Opening her eyes, a blurry vision of red hair swam before her in the dark.

"Leli?" Blinking and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Solona sat up. "Leli, what's wrong?"

"We need to talk."

 _That_ woke her up. "All right. What-"

Leliana's lips found hers, shutting her up immediately. She hadn't kissed the bard in two days, and the familiar feel, taste, and smell all at once almost overwhelmed her. The mage kissed her back fervently, her hands immediately traveling to the bard's waist.

Pulling back, panting, Leliana smiled. "There is much to say. But for now, I only want to say that my solution for letting you know I was still angry was childish and unhelpful. And I'm sorry."

" _I'm_ sorry. I know that this is a foolish venture. I should not have ended our argument the way I did. It was not fair to simply… give you an ultimatum."

"Shhhh, Solona," Leliana breathed, kissing her lightly on the lips before moving slowly down the mage's jaw, speaking softly as she did so. "There will be time. We will come through this. We can fight… and argue… and throw things…" Solona chuckled as her lover moved further down the mage's throat. "We can do all those things later. But for now, I'd rather make love before it is time to be up and moving out. If these _are_ our last hours, I would rather spend them loving you, and feeling your love for me."

Solona's breath hitched as Leliana nibbled lightly at her pulse-point. "That sounds fine by me," she managed, letting her hands wander up to Leliana's breasts, tantalizing under the homespun shift she had slept in. "Can I just ask one question?"

"Hmmm?" Leliana hummed, working her way steadily toward Solona's breasts, her hands seeking out the ties of the mage's homespun trousers.

"What made you change your mind?"

Leliana stopped. Sitting back out of Solona's reach, she pushed her sleep-mussed, far too long (as she always said) hair behind her ears. "I… overheard you and Alstair talking earlier tonight. About your mother… I realize that I knew what betrayal was like from one I loved, and how much worse it would have been if it been my _mother_ who had done what Marjolaine had." Sighing, she dropped her hands to her lap. "We still need to talk about it, but… I'm sorry for acting the way I did. I understand why you felt so strongly about going through with this." Smirking, she added, "And I forgive you your 'ultimatum,' as you call it."

Solona smiled, reaching out and threading her fingers into the bard's hair. Leaning forward, she pulled Leliana's head just far enough forward to meet her in a kiss. "It's decided, then," she said as she pulled back. "We'll talk. _After_ we survive Flemeth. And in the meantime, I'll just have to make it up to you somehow."

Smiling, Leliana nodded, kissing her again as she wended her arms around the mage's neck, pulling her down to the bedroll in her embrace.


	48. Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead

Solona looked… refreshed. And Leliana was speaking to her again. In fact, if Alistair had to bet, he'd say that the bard was making up for lost time, laughing and joking and giggling coyly at little things his fellow warden said that he couldn't hear. It made him smile, to see them on such good terms. He suspected Leliana was still angry, and he had _no_ idea what made the bard change her mind about giving them both the cold shoulder, but seeing things begin to creep back to normal put him in a bright mood.

At least until a certain Antivan elf's horse rode up alongside his own. "Might I offer you a bit of advice, my good friend Alistair?"

Sighing, he rolled his eyes. "I like my hair the way it is, thank you."

"Truly? As you wish…" They both chuckled before Zevran continued. "My advice actually had to do with your recent… exertions with our favorite raven-haired witch."

Alistair started, looking over at Zevran's knowing smirk. "How…?"

Zevran gestured toward his pointed ears. "They are good for more than being pretty, though they do _that_ quite marvelously, if I do say so myself."

"You haven't said anything to her, have you? She'll kill you…"

Zevran shook his head. "I am not an idiot, Alistair. I have not brought it up until now because she is not within hearing range now. But if you wanted, I have some roots you could chew… for energy, of course. Help you last longer, as well-"

"Oh, dear Maker, why are you talking about this?!"

Zevran clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "You Fereldans are so finicky! How will you ever learn to pleasure each other unless you talk about it?"

"And you talk this candidly about sex with Wynne, do you?" _That ought to shut him up_ , Alistair smirked to himself.

"But of course!" Zevran replied. "How else would I know what she likes and does not like me to do?"

"And I _don't_ want to hear what those things might be!" Alistair nearly shouted, shaking his head, tempted to stick his fingers in his ears. Too bad the helmet would get in the way…

Zevran laughed openly. "Such a prudish people!"

"I can't help it! I was educated in the Chantry! I spent my _life_ around prudish people. It's comfortable; familiar."

" _Touché_ ," Zevran conceded, grinning as they continued their horses at a walk.

Shaking his head, Alistair considered his companion. They weren't what you might call friends, or at least nothing like the friendship he had with both Solona and Leliana, and yet they were _friendly_. He had sought the elf's advice, and trusted him to give good advice, and he trusted him with his life in battle. Perhaps they really were friends, just of a different sort?

"As it happens, I do have a question for you, Zevran."

"Alas, I am a one-woman man, Alistair. But you may ask anyway. It will be good for my pride."

Alistair just smiled and plunged on into his question. "You're here, at least in part, to get away from the Crows, right?"

"That is indeed true," Zevran answered. "At least in part," he repeated, his eyes straying to Wynne's form up ahead.

"So when this is over, what do you intend to do with yourself? You can't go back to Antiva, I assume?"

"What I do depends in large part upon you and your fellow warden, as I am technically in your service. I am not a free man, as it were."

"Yes, yes, I know. And that won't last. But what if you could do whatever you wanted? Assuming it was something near Wynne, of course."

"I do not know." Zevran's eyes slid sideways toward the future king. It was always disconcerting being looked at that way. "Aren't you going to be king? Perhaps you have people you need killed?"

"I… probably do, actually. There's an unsettling thought…"

"See? It's that sort of thinking that makes me think I have a future in this _fine_ country of yours!" Zevran announced, spreading his arms in a welcoming fashion.

Alistair snorted. "That's assuming I would hire you. You did a poor job of it with Solona and I."

"That's the thing about kings, Alistair – they make for good business, as the client _or_ the target."

Alistair didn't really know what to say in response, but Zevran's grin made him suspicious. "Wait a minute. You're having one over on me, aren't you?"

"You'll never know, will you?" the elf said with a wink.

Shaking his head, Alistair couldn't help but smile. Yes, perhaps they were friends. Following the elf's gaze again, he saw the man glancing at his lover. "You really love her, don't you?"

"Hmm?" The elf's gaze settled upon Alistair again. "Yes. I do. I never thought I would be the type… but what can I say? Wynne has bewitched me with her powers!"

Alistair chuckled, getting ready to say something about the bewitching powers of witches or something equally as dull-witted when he noticed his companions had stopped. Leading his horse to the front, he sought out Solona, finding Leliana by her side.

"What's the holdup? Are we near?"

Solona nodded. "Yes. It doesn't look very recognizable with nearly all the leaves missing from the trees, but Max's nose knows the way."

"So what's the plan, Warden?" Oghren asked, guiding his pony a little closer. He and Natia had both been gifted smaller, sturdier ponies from the arl's stables, and now had their own animals. They couldn't keep up in an all-out sprint, but otherwise were a more than suitable replacement for the horse. Natia was doubly pleased, as she had been riding plastered to Oghren's back, which couldn't have been a pleasant place to spend any great length of time; the stench alone could knock one out. Sten's animal was back to being a beast of burden. Morrigan's horse had stayed in Redcliffe, to be used by the mage as she accompanied Eamon and his household to Denerim.

Alistair reached up to scratch his neck. "Well, I…"

"Leli and I have been talking about it with Sten, actually," Solona said, saving him the fact that he had completely forgotten to formulate some kind of strategy.

"And?" Oghren prompted.

Solona shrugged. "We don't really know what's going to happen. There's even a chance she's not at the hut. So Alistair, Max, and I will go into the clearing, leaving you all behind, to reveal yourself if battle is joined. Leliana has a special poison ready that might help, and will await a clear shot from the trees. She can also share it with Zevran, doubling their chances of hitting her."

"Magebane?" Zevran asked, smiling at Leliana's confirming nod. "Excellent. That should help considerably. But… when did you make it? It is complicated, and the ingredients are expensive."

Leliana blushed a little. "I _may_ have taken some of my anger out on Morrigan before we left…"

Solona's eyes grew wide. "You… what did you do?!"

Leliana's blush spread from her cheeks down her neck under her armor. "I… spiked the wine they would be traveling with on the road."

Zevran laughed. "Oh, but that is good!"

"It is _horrible_ ," Wynne corrected, frowning at Leliana. "All those people drinking some poison they are unaware of."

"It is harmless!" Leliana protested, suddenly defensive in the face of Wynne's disapproval. "Unless you are a mage, the poison does absolutely nothing to you. So unless Eamon is employing apostates, there should be no harm. I merely wanted to _inconvenience_ Morrigan. Now she won't be able to change her form to get away from all those people. She still has the skills to defend herself if she needs it, but she shouldn't – she's surrounded by Eamon and his personal guard! Honorable men! _And_ Isolde!" Leliana seemed to wilt a little as Wynne's frown deepened. "I'm not _proud_ of it," she added. "I was angry she would endanger all our lives – or worse, _just_ Solona's, if we had not accompanied her – for a personal favor. I have since seen the error of my ways, but what's done is done. I will put the antidote into the wine supply when we arrive. I can do no more at this moment."

Alistair shook his head. "Well, what's done is done, as you say. There is no fixing it now. But I like the sound of you having a supply of the poison with you, nonetheless."

"Indeed," Wynne murmured, her features smoothing only a little.

"Anyway," Solona continued, eyeing both Leliana and Wynne warily. "Since Flemeth knows both Alistair and I, but no one else, we were thinking she might be more likely to let her guard down if we approach alone. I have no idea how this might go, so essentially, we need to be ready for anything."

Alistair shrugged. "At least we know what the clearing looks like. That's more than we usually get when we stumble into a fight."

Solona snorted. "That's certainly true." Looking around, she met each of their gazes. "I'd like to thank all of you for coming along. It means more than I can say. I didn't ask you to do this – _I_ was asked to do this. But you came anyway, and for that I am eternally grateful." At the last, her eyes settled on Leliana's, and the bard smiled, though there was tension around her eyes. She was worried, Alistair could tell, and he couldn't blame her.

Oghren broke the slightly awkward silence. "What are you gettin' all sappy for? Let's get this soddin' chore over with so we can _drink_!"

Laughing, the tension now sufficiently relieved, they dismounted, tying their mounts well away from the clearing ahead before making for their agreed-upon spots.

* * *

Leliana stood in a dense copse of trees, a perfect view of the cabin in the woods up ahead. Zevran stood in a similar position, several hundred feet away in another thick stand of trees, his own bow and magebane-laced arrow at-the-ready. Wynne, Oghren, Sten, and Natia all waited in the woods between the two archers, hunkered down and hidden as best they were able. Solona, Alistair, and Max all walked out into the open, weapons sheathed for the moment, not wanting to appear threatening in any way. Breathing in deeply, Leliana counted to ten as she exhaled, forcefully calming her pounding heart. She was incredibly nervous, unable to shake the feeling that this was by far the stupidest and most dangerous thing she had ever done.

This needed to happen, Leliana was convinced of that now. They were all right – no one deserved to live in that kind of fear, of that kind of betrayal, not even Morrigan. But she still could not shake the foreboding in her gut, nor could she quiet her heart from its apprehensive tattoo upon her ribs.

In the distance, Alistair and Solona reached the door of the cabin. Giving it a firm knock, Solona stepped back. A moment later, it opened, and out walked an innocent-looking older woman, grey hair somewhat wild in the autumn sunlight. She wore a dress clearly put together from animal skins and spare bits of cloth, but instead of looking crazy, her utter lack of care for her appearance – coupled with her straight back and shoulders – gave her a regal air of power that made Leliana's heart drop to her stomach.

This woman was _powerful_. _Morrigan makes a whole lot more sense to me now…_

Leliana did not yet have a clear shot. Every time Alistair subtly moved to try to give it to her, as they had discussed, the old woman also subtly shifted, keeping Alistair between herself and Leliana. The fact that Zevran was also not firing made it clear she did the same to him. Frustrated, Leliana strained to hear their conversation, but to no avail. She was simply too far away. Frowning, she released the tension on her bowstring, thankful to Solona for getting her such a good replacement for the longbow that had snapped in the Deep Roads. It was not yet as familiar as that weapon had been, but it would get there in time. Looking around briefly, she strung the bow over her shoulder and leapt up, seizing hold of a branch and pulling herself to a higher vantage point in the tree. Climbing a few more feet as quickly as she could remain quiet, Leliana retrieved her bow and took aim once more, satisfied that her prey was now more than available to her.

Inhaling deeply, Leliana sighted the witch down the shaft of the arrow. Exhaling slowly, she released the projectile, sending it toward her companions – and her target. Her aim was true, and the arrow flew right over Alistair's shoulder, taking the old woman near the collarbone. Flemeth stumbled, confused, stumbling further as Zevran's arrow landed directly in her chest. The woman frowned a moment as Alistair and Solona both drew weapons, then she thrust her hands out. The wardens were thrown to the ground. Max growled at Flemeth while standing between her and Solona, the hair upon his back standing straight up.

Arms raised, the witch thrust her hands out once more, and Leliana's eyes widened. Without even the time to shout a warning to the others, she dove from the tree, barely missing the ball of fire that came hurtling her way. Rolling upon the ground, she only hoped Zevran had seen the one headed his way as well.

On her feet among fire and ash, Leliana began running, her cloak trailing behind her, the only thing in her mind to make sure her wardens were unharmed. That was, until she got to the edge of the clearing and saw a dragon next to the cabin, a torn bit of cloth under its foot that could only have been Flemeth's dress.

_It looks like Morrigan is not the only shapeshifter in the Korcari Wilds…_

Leliana had known it would take up to thirty seconds for the poison to completely affect the witch. They had discussed this fact, had anticipated that Flemeth would likely cast one or two spells before she was incapacitated. What they could not have anticipated was that Flemeth would decide that her last spell to cast would be to turn herself into a _dragon_. Who could have anticipated that? _Leave it to Morrigan to send us in blind_ , she thought sourly to herself.

She heard a whoop of excitement, and turned to see that somehow Oghren's short-legged form was passing her, his axe in-hand. She could see the bloodlust in his eyes, and knew that he was already lost to his berserker tendencies. Taking a quick look around, she saw that everyone was on their feet and moving, including the wardens, so she slowed at the edge of the clearing, drew an arrow, and prepared to put it through the eye of the dragon now rearing before her.

The dragon had not been idle while Leliana had been running. It stood now upon two legs, roaring its might up to the heavens. Releasing the arrow, Leliana watched it strike the scales upon the creature's chest, utterly harmless. Frowning, she studied the ground through narrowed eyes, trying to come up with some advantage as her companions circled the dragon.

Sten struck first, running forward with a yell and driving his _Asala_ into the beast's back leg. He was rewarded with a swift kick, and he went flying back to land near Leliana. She didn't worry for him, however, as he was back on his feet almost instantaneously. Leliana's eyes were caught again by the dragon pulling the sword from its flesh, flicking it away like a bothersome splinter. Its movement made it clear that the wound did not hinder it in the slightest.

Meanwhile, Solona's blade had begun to glow. She was practicing her new techniques, holding a ball of power between her hands. Thrusting her arms out, she sent it flying at the dragon, and as it flew it changed. By the time it hit the beast, it was a wash of razor-sharp icicles, intent on piercing through the dragon's scales. The dragon batted most of them away, but one or two struck true, causing the beast to roar its outrage, flame blasting from between its teeth.

 _Think. We have fought one of these before_ , Leliana thought to herself, watching Oghren yell as he went for the dragon's foot with his axe, Max still barking and growling and searching for an opening his teeth would be able to handle. As the dwarf was swatted away much like an insect, Leliana furrowed her brows. _We need to immobilize it. How did we do so last time?_

The image of Solona launching herself atop the high dragon and driving her sword deep into its spine played before Leliana's eyes, and before thinking too much she was off, running for her glowing lover. As Alistair, Sten, and Oghren tried a united front, she reached the mage, who seemed to be taking a moment to study the dragon's movements – entirely the opposite of her previous battle strategies while channeling her arcane energy. _Perhaps the meditation is indeed working to temper the tunnel vision she has spoken of_ …

"Solona!" Glowing eyes turned to her, a scowl marring the mage's exotic features. "Solona, you must incapacitate it again!"

"I know!" the mage shouted in reply, her echoing voices filling Leliana with both alarm – it was always alarming to hear it issue forth from her lover's lips – and hope. They could do this; they had an arcane warrior on their side! "But she won't let me near! The high dragon atop the mountain was a beast, with the _mind_ of a beast! This is Flemeth in the _form_ of a dragon – she retains her mind, her wit, her intelligence! She strategizes; keeps us away and then throws fire in our faces!"

Thinking fast, Leliana watched as Natia, unseen by the dragon, crept around, new blades held before her in a way that would allow her to stab or slash _very_ quickly, depending on the opening that presented itself. Alistair, Sten, and Oghren were acting as bait while Natia circled around…

"Solona! Now! It is distracted by the boys; go _now_!"

A nod, and then a flash of light as Solona suddenly took off running, faster than should have been possible. Several seconds later she was leaping upon the dragon's back, her blade high above her head before being driven between the two back legs, directly into the dragon's spine. Almost immediately, the dragon's legs gave out, and it was immobilized. This did not mean that its front legs and head were any less dangerous, however, as the men learned. Having stopped to cheer, Alistair was hit and sent flying, Oghren following shortly after him. Only Sten retained his feet, having kept his head and not started _cheering_ in the middle of a battle. _Stupid boys…_

Notching an arrow and pulling it hard against her cheek, Leliana let fly once more, watching as the arrow embedded itself right in the dragon's eye. Shrieking and spurting flame, it turned its head toward its back, where Solona was pulling her sword free. Just missing the mage as she leapt to the ground, the dragon roared its rage once more, turning back to the melee fighters before it.

Alistair had regained his feet, a slight halo of blue light surrounding him. Looking to where she had been at the edge of the clearing, Leliana saw Wynne incanting, her eyes focused on Alistair's form. Natia could no longer be seen, but a sudden squawk from the dragon made it clear that the little dwarf had been up to some mischief where she had disappeared out of view. A swipe of the dragon's foreleg removed the dwarf, however, and she was hurled toward the trees, to have her fall softened when she crashed into Solona. The two went down in a heap, but were on their feet almost in remarkable time, given their entwined limbs.

Solona rushed to Alistair as Leliana drew another arrow, sending it toward the dragon's other eye, but unfortunately it did not hit at the correct angle. The arrow glanced off the creature's snout, causing Leliana to curse and begin to run, seeking the other side of the clearing so she could blind the beast's other eye. She halted as she saw Alistair and Solona rush the dragon, however. The two yelled unintelligibly, both running for its face. The dragon's head went low, in anticipation of cooking them both where they stood, only to have Solona point her sword into its gaping maw and send a blast of electricity _inside_ the beast's mouth.

That did the trick, so to speak. The dragon's head reared, its body seized, and then its forelegs gave out and it hit the ground.

Hugging in triumph, Solona and Alistair did not see Flemeth's dying act. Her one good eye half-lidded, Flemeth sent a searing blast of white-hot flame towards the two wardens, and the clearing echoed with their screams.


	49. Miracle of Miracles

Leliana stood rooted in place as the flames abated. Solona, still channeling her magic and wearing enchanted armor, stood unscathed, but in her arms was a now-unconscious Alistair, his clothes burning, his hair gone, his armor glowing with the heat from the flames. Wynne was there more quickly than Leliana could have imagined, however, hands already glowing blue, Solona doing something to take the heat from the man's armor so it wouldn't continue to burn him. Max whimpered nearby. Sten and Oghren examined the now-dead dragon. Natia was on-hand should she be needed by the mages. That just left…

"Zevran?!" He wasn't near the dragon. Searching her memory, Leliana realized that she had not seen him during the entirety of the battle. Worrying her lower lip, she set off in the direction she had last seen him. Wynne would take care of Alistair. There was little she could do to help them except stand by and worry.

"Zevran? Are you hurt?" She could see the thicker stand of trees he'd hidden in – they were burned - the fires thankfully not spreading to the rest of the forest - while ash floated through the air. Hurrying her steps, Leliana broke into a trot, starting to worry that he had not escaped the fireball Flemeth had launched his direction.

She froze when she saw him. His entire body was burned horrifically, the heat probably having been so severe that his leather armor as well as his under-clothing and his hair had incinerated instantaneously. All that remained was a ghastly, glistening red against the black of the burned landscape. Upon the red were patches of black, and Leliana almost retched when she realized that it was his skin burned to a crisp, the small white spots she could see likely the bone beneath.

There was no way he could be alive, and yet she must find out for certain. Rushing to his side, she knelt, unsure if she should touch him, and yet not knowing any other way. Feeling through the slick of blood and other fluids upon his flesh, she reached for the pulse-point of his throat. _There!_ A pulse, if weak and unsteady.

"Wynne!" Leliana called, but the ash and smoke in the air made her cough, and she did not receive a response. "Wynne! I have Zevran! He is hurt badly!" Nothing. All she had on her person were a few minor healing potions, for minor cuts and pains, nothing that would help him as severely injured as he was. The elf had lost precious minutes already while they slew Flemeth. He needed healing magic, now. Barring magic, he needed a miracle.

_A miracle…_

Her thoughts and panic clarifying instantly, Leliana reached for the cord around her neck, the one carrying the pinch of Andraste's Ashes. She would fiddle with it from time to time, but it was an absent-minded thing, something she would touch when she prayed silently to herself and nothing more. The vial was so tiny that it could hardly be called so, and yet a pinch was more than enough. Giving it a stiff yank to remove it from her person, she was soon prying at the seal of the vial. She did not even hesitate over whether this was the right time to use it.

Once the stopper came away, she carefully held it over Zevran's face, parting his lips and upending the thing so the ashes fell into his mouth. Next, she took the water skin at her belt, pouring a small amount so that he would swallow without inhaling.

That was all she could do. Other than pray.

"O Holy Andraste," she began, bringing her hands together in front of her face before lowering them to almost touch Zevran's broken body. She prayed, fervently, asking for Zevran's life, asking that the sinner live to see another day, to atone for his crimes. It was a basic prayer, used for anyone and everyone who was sick or in danger, and yet Leliana felt it had power for the very fact that it had been used for so many souls seeking Andraste's guidance and comfort, seeking for the prophet and martyr to speak to the silent Maker for them. There was power in that, in a community of people using the same words in all languages. And so she did, too, speaking first in Orlesian before switching to the common tongue, and then Antivan and Nevarran, repeating the words, her eyes closed and her hands held barely an inch above Zevran's hot skin.

She jerked when a hand grasped hers as she ended her prayer the fourth time. She opened her eyes to a field of pale skin, under it the curving slope of muscle, beautiful and glorious and _whole_. Letting her gaze wander, Leliana met curious brown eyes, surrounded by completely unblemished skin. Smiling, she giggled madly, stupidly saying the first thing that came to her mind, as if that were the most important thing right now.

"You will have to get your tattoos redone," she murmured, cupping Zevran's cheek lightly where tattoos had been.

His eyes crinkled in a smile. "I think I can live with that. Wynne will be horribly disappointed, I fear, but we will manage." She pulled her hand away as he moved his hairless head around, his eyes searching for something. "Where are the others?"

"Oh, Alistair!" Leliana straightened suddenly, looking off into the distance. Nothing seemed to have changed, but neither was anyone looking panicked. "We should get you to them. They are treating Alistair."

"Did we win?"

Looking back down, Leliana realized she was right where she needed to be. Settling back to the charred forest floor, she laid her hand on his chest as he attempted to push his way up. She kept her eyes dutifully upon his face, as the man was entirely naked. "Stay still, Zevran. We won, yes. But you…"

"I remember the fire. I couldn't get out of the way fast enough." He closed his eyes and swallowed, his brows knitting in memory. "I had looked away once my arrow struck, though for the life of me I cannot remember why." Opening his eyes, he continued, "When I looked back toward the hut, it was to see the fireball striking the tree I was hiding behind. It was as though it came right for me, searing my eyes. I… do not recommend that sensation."

Leliana grimaced. "You poor thing. We… fought Flemeth – she shifted into a dragon, Zevran! And her dying breath burned Alistair almost as badly as you. You… I used the Ashes to save you…"

His hand lay over hers on his chest. "You saved me… _Gracias, mi salvadora_ _._ "

It was simple, but it was enough to make Leliana blush. Nodding, smiling, she leaned over, sliding an arm under his shoulders to help him to his feet. "Come. You need clothing, and food. And perhaps the attentions of a certain healer mage?"

Grinning, he nodded. "Yes. Yes, I believe I _do_ need her."

Chuckling, Leliana took on some of his weight, helping the barefoot, naked, hairless elven man make his way to where the others were gathered.

* * *

Wynne sat back, wiping the sweat from her brow. She needed to eat something, to rest. She probably shouldn't have drained herself so, but she did what she must, and Alistair would be all right. He would need a day's rest, at the very least, to replenish his strength, but given what he'd looked like when she got to his side, the delay in their return to Eamon's men was a small price to pay.

"Strip him of his armor and get him inside," she ordered Solona. "He will wake up in a few minutes." Looking upon his figure again, she smiled. "I must say, I do good work."

Solona snorted. "That's the truth. I'll get him into the hut. Is it wrong to use it, do you think?"

"Who cares, Warden?! _She_ ain't usin' it anymore!" Oghren replied, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder at the now-dead dragon.

Wynne shuddered as she looked upon it. She couldn't truly figure out why the witch had not returned to her normal form upon her death. Perhaps it had something to do with the magebane? Did shapeshifters go back to their natural form upon death? Shaking her head to herself, she regained her feet. "Natia, would you be kind enough to retrieve the horses?"

"No problem," the dwarf replied, starting off toward where the animals – and all their equipment – had been tied off.

A low hum sounded, and then Sten announced, "I will aid the dwarf."

Dusting off her robes, it took Wynne a moment to realize that they were missing two of their number. Looking around, she finally noticed Leliana walking slowly toward them, a _very_ naked – and _bald_?! – Zevran leaning on her as they walked.

"Zevran!" She ran over, the other two having come quite close while she finished with Alistair. "What- what happened?!" His hair was gone, his skin almost shining, and… his tattoos were gone as well. _How in the Maker's name did that happen?_

Instead of answering, Zevran merely broke away from Leliana and wrapped his arms around Wynne, hugging her close. Her arms automatically wrapped around his waist, and she pulled him closer. She was very aware of his nudity, but he seemed unconcerned, so she did not rush to cover him like she might a maiden in a similar state.

When he pulled back, he had a smile on his face. It looked strange without the tattoo along the side. "Leliana saved me, Wynne. I was unable to dodge the fire thrown my way, and I was burned very badly."

She turned her gaze back to Leliana, knitting her brows. "How…?"

Leliana held something out in her hand. Taking it, Wynne saw a tiny vial on a leather thong. "The Ashes, Wynne. I could not get your attention, and I was alone, and it was the only way-"

Wynne didn't let her finish, merely placing a hand upon the bard's cheek. "Thank you, dear one. I do not know what I would do without your quick thinking."

Leliana's skin flushed, and she lowered her eyes, a slight smile upon her lips. Leaving the bard be, Wynne turned her attentions back to her lover. "Come, Zevran. Let's get you some clothing and both of us a good meal, shall we?"

* * *

The lock turned with a satisfying click, the chest opening to reveal a large, leather-bound book.

"Well, that was easier than I would have expected," Solona murmured.

"Oh?" Leliana asked.

"I don't know… we had to fight a dragon! It seemed like the lock wouldn't work, or the book wouldn't be here, or something else would go wrong."

"Well," Leliana said, reaching in and hefting the book out, "let us not tempt fate, yes? Go put this in your pack. Unless… did you plan to read any of it?"

Solona furrowed her brows as she accepted the book: Flemeth's grimmoire. "It's certainly tempting… though given that she was an abomination, who knows what kind of blood magic is in here…"

"Just be careful, whatever you do," Wynne called over. She was sitting at the fire, spooning stew from the pot hanging over the flames. They had moved Alistair and Zevran inside the hut, and Leliana had put together the meal while Solona, Sten, Oghren, and Natia had examined the dragon's body. Solona had only now come back inside, leaving the others to keep watch while she retrieved the grimmoire, the secondary purpose of this excursion to Flemeth's hut.

"I will be careful, Wynne," she promised, stowing the book in the bag she had brought in from her horse. Moving to the elder mage's side, she took a seat on the floor, looking over to Alistair, who Leliana was checking on. "How is he?"

Following her gaze, Wynne smiled. "He will be fine. I imagine he'll wake up soon."

"And Zevran?"

Wynne's smile became softer, fonder, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "Thanks to Leliana's quick thinking, he is well, and whole. Though he needs to rest, to restore his energy."

Solona suddenly buried her head in her hands. "I feel a fool. My heart told me Leliana was right, that something terrible would happen. Had it not been for her…"

"Hush, Solona. Thinking about what could have been will do you no good," Wynne chided, resting a hand on the younger mage's shoulder. "Everyone is safe now, and Flemeth is dead. We have succeeded."

"I know I should not dwell… but I should at least _learn_. I keep… thinking everything will be all right, and then it isn't. I thought Leske was dead, and he nearly killed Leliana. I thought Flemeth dead, and she nearly killed Alistair. Ever since discovering the ability to heal myself, I think I have been reckless. I cannot get hurt, so why be as careful?"

Wynne gave a knowing smile. "So you have discovered that _your_ fate is not the only one you should worry about?"

Solona snorted derisively. "Indeed. You all can get hurt. I need to… pay closer attention. Make sure of the end result. I need to be cautious, as Leliana has pleaded with me to be so often. I can't keep trusting luck will be on my side. For I am not the only one who can be hurt."

"I'm proud of you, Solona."

Solona looked up, knitting her brows in confusion. "What for?"

"For thinking like a _leader_ , and not just like a _fighter_. We follow you, by choice, and that is fine. But your powers are dangerous, and you lead us into battle around every corner. It gladdens my heart to see you learn that you must lead us _cautiously_ , that you are not the only one for whom you should be concerned. When you are the leader of the Grey Wardens properly, that will be even more important for you to embody at every moment."

Solona looked down again. "Why did it take something so drastic for me to understand what you and Leliana have been trying to get me to see?"

Wynne shrugged, picking her bowl back up and resuming her meal. "Some lessons must be learned the hard way. We simply never know which ones those will be – it's different from person to person."

"Which did you need to learn? The hard way, I mean."

Wynne paused, cocking her head to the side as she studied Solona. After a moment, she answered. "That as a mage, I will never lead a normal life."

Solona was confused. "What do you mean?"

Sighing, Wynne closed her eyes. "All I wanted was the love of a man, to bear his child, to live a normal life outside of the Chantry and the Circle. I found the love of a man, and bore him a child – both of which the Chantry promptly took from me. I had been cautioned against such behavior, and yet I would not listen. When my son was taken from me… that is when I realized that they were right all along. And as time has passed, I have realized it goes deeper than that. I do not believe that my magic is a curse; that my being prone to possession is some mark that I am disfavored by the Maker, as the Chantry would have us believe. But my magic _does_ mark me as different – I will never be _normal_. Magic is _ab_ normal; not good or bad, just different from the majority of people. It was a very difficult lesson to learn, and even more difficult to accept. I will never be like others."

Solona blinked rapidly a few times, processing what Wynne had just said. "Wow, Wynne. I… you're absolutely right. I… I can walk into the dream world _awake_. We literally know no other person who can do as much. Even you can't as easily as I can – you need a great deal of lyrium for the necessary power. No one in this room, or outside it, or that we've come across on this mad journey of ours, can do what I can do. I… will never truly lead a normal, peaceful life… Even my death is promised to be painful, fighting darkspawn once the taint takes me for good."

"And how do you feel about that?"

"I don't know. I haven't stopped to think about it much. We've been moving constantly, with no still time to just sit and _think_."

"Well, hopefully, once all this is over, you'll have some time to simply sit and think," Wynne responded, smiling warmly as she finished her meal.

The floorboards creaked then, alerting them to Leliana's return from tending to Alistair's bedside. She had a questioning look on her face, but Solona didn't offer an explanation, merely taking the bard's hand when offered. They ate quietly before going to see what could be done about Flemeth's dragon corpse.

* * *

They stayed in Flemeth's cabin for two days. Unsure of what to do with the dragon's body, and also unsure of what to do with the usable parts of it – in the end it was Flemmeth, and using bits of her felt supremely _wrong_ – Solona finally moved it away from the house and concentrated lightning on the corpse until it caught fire. Then she fed the flames with her own, effectively giving Flemeth a funeral pyre. It was grisly work, but their only other option was to let a giant dragon's body rot next to them while they tried to heal inside. So she took the grim work upon herself, as the only one able to do anything about it.

It was cramped quarters in the small hut, though, so Leliana set up their tent outside, giving the two of them some privacy and the others some space. Solona didn't fail to notice that Wynne and Zevran did the same thing, on the other side of the hut, but no one said anything to anyone – that would just be rude. Maybe if Wynne wasn't such a mother figure… but she was, and teasing _her_ about sex just felt _wrong_. So Solona didn't, instead just greeting each of them politely when they would convene in the hut in the morning for a meal and company.

Alistair was doing remarkably better, though he looked ridiculous. The flames had burned away every bit of hair on his body, leaving him bald, without beard or even eyebrows. They would grow back, but for the moment he just looked… utterly bizarre. Zevran, as well.

It wasn't until they were saddling up, all packed and ready to leave, that Alistair finally brought up what he'd been thinking about while convalescing, however. "Solona, I had a thought, and I haven't been able to shake it."

"Oh? What is it?"

"I… well, the fort at Ostagar is so close. Hell, it's on our way, technically." Alistair shrugged as he spoke. "Since the horde has retreated into the Deep Roads for the winter, I was thinking we could look over the battlefield. Maybe there's some warden materials, writings…"

"And we could give Duncan a proper funeral pyre," Solona added, nodding her head. "I don't see why we can't. But we should ask the others, too. And we should be careful, regardless."

Alistair nodded. "Agreed. But it's something I'd like to do myself, even if they don't wish to join me. The wardens deserve proper respects paid, even if we can't… find all the bodies…"

Solona reached over, gripping his arm to get his attention, and to console him. "It's all right, Alistair. I'm sure it will be fine. They deserve it, you're right. And it's not even out of our way. A day at most in delay seems like a small price to pay to honor our Order, and the rest who gave their lives there. Especially if we don't get another chance…"

He looked up then, catching her gaze, and they shared a mutual understanding of something they didn't often talk about. They both knew they might not survive the coming conflict, the second wave of the Blight, come spring. But they never mentioned it – what could they say? It was an unreal concept, in truth. And they had no choice. Both felt this as their duty, the taint in their blood calling them to destroy their enemies. They simply _must_ do it, and that was the end of it. Why waste time talking about the fact that it might claim their lives?

Nodding in acknowledgment of it was all they did before Solona put her foot in her horse's stirrup and launched herself into the saddle. There really was nothing to say. Either they would make it, or they wouldn't.


	50. Return To Ostagar

The fields of Ostagar were white with snow. It had been snowing lightly all day, but Alistair decided that was a good thing when he saw the first disembodied foot sticking out of a wind-swept little hill of the stuff. It could have belonged to anybody – a friend, a warden, a guard of the king's, or one of those in the infirmary. Hell, it could have belonged to the king himself. But the warden really didn't want to look closer to find out, as an entire summer and autumn under the burning sun and stifling humidity would have made the bodies completely unrecognizable. Not to mention absolutely disgusting.

Alistair was feeling much improved from his near-death at the hands – or mouth – of a dragon… again. He had healed up enough to be able to move properly, and Wynne had worked her magic and left him with almost no scarring. He was getting used to not having any hair on his body, wearing a hastily-sewn cap on his head to cushion his helm and help keep him warm in the crisp autumn air. His eyes itched constantly from his eyelashes growing back in, and he could just feel stubbly growth along his brows and scalp. He had joked that he would look a fright in front of the nobles at the Landsmeet. He had then proceeded to feel ill at the thought of having to _actually_ face that reality so soon. But not yet. In this moment, he could simply be a warden. In this moment, that's what he most needed to be.

In this frame of mind, he stood surveying the battlefield. Hills of drifting snow covered the land, gathering at piles of the dead of both sides. Here and there he could see the evidence of weaponry: pikes sticking out of the ground, shields and bows lying alone without their owners, hilts of swords with snow piling up on top. He was pretty sure he saw the ribs of a dead mabari only a few feet away, though it was thankfully only a skeleton – probably picked over by the carrion birds.

Cocking his head to the side, Alistair watched a bird hopping along the ground in the distance. _What a curious thing to see…_ He supposed it must be looking for scraps before making the flight north for the winter. It horrified him some, but he couldn't really blame it – food was food, right? Oh, how his opinion on such things had changed since last he was here.

Looking back to his companions, the former templar voiced what he was thinking. "Something about returning here makes me feel old, Wynne."

She smirked slightly, answering him immediately. "And what _exactly_ are you implying, Alistair?"

Zevran snickered while Alistair gaped at her. "What? No, nothing, I just thought…"

"You just thought I might be an expert at feeling old and could share some sage advice?"

 _What?!_ That wasn't what he meant at all! He tried again. "No! I just mean that I was a different person then. I believed him, you know? That it would be a glorious battle, that we'd win…"

The mage's expression lost its teasing edge. "I did, too. We were _all_ a little younger the last time we were here."

Smirking, he quipped, "Well, not you. You've always been old."

Glaring, she bit right back at him. "With lip like that, son, you'll be lucky to live to be _half_ my age."

He just chuckled, shaking his head. "Shall we move on? I wonder if Solona and Leliana have found anything."

"I suppose we'll find out when we meet them at the Tower of Ishal," Zevran murmured, eyeing it in the distance.

Alistair stared off toward the place where their betrayal had been made clear. He had been so confused when the swarm of darkspawn had moved through the doors at the top of the tower. He had felt triumphant for all of thirty seconds after lighting the beacon. He had grinned at Solona, receiving his first smile back from her since he'd met her the day before. Up to that point she had held only frowns for him, the templar. It was difficult to blame her, but it had gotten old pretty quickly. That smile of victory, as soft as it was, had been the first glimpse of the friendship they now had, hard as a rock and just as unbreakable.

He had turned to exchange slaps on the back with the guardsmen who had accompanied them into the tower, joining their shouts of triumph with shield and sword raised high. But then that familiar feeling had travelled up his spine and onto his skull, and he had shouted a warning as he turned and brought his weapons to bear. Where had these new enemies come from? The group had fought bravely against them, but he watched as first one man and then the other was slain. Then he had become sloppy, not covering his flank properly, and a darkspawn's dagger had found the vulnerable place between plates of armor in his side. The last thing he'd seen before the one he faced hit him hard upon the head had been Solona taking an arrow to the chest.

Alistair shook his head to clear the memory. It had taken weeks for the look on her face as she was struck to stop visiting his dreams. For some reason, it had haunted him. Perhaps because she looked exasperated, like this was _yet another thing_ that was going wrong, in addition to her surprise? He had never asked her about it, though. Perhaps now he should?

"Come on, let's see what we can find. I think I see a chest over there," he said, smirking a little when Zevran's ears seemed to perk at the word "chest." Snickering, he led them both on to search the main camp.

* * *

Solona really wasn't sure how to feel about what she was seeing. She kept getting flashes of the last time she'd seen something, like the bridge arcing overhead, or the king's command pavilion in the main camp, or the quartermaster's station off in the corner. Her gut twisted when she saw the charred remains of the prisoner's cages, a skeleton inside one, propped against the side with its arms hanging out, barely held together by stringy connective tissue.

"Solona? My love, what is wrong?"

Solona turned to Leliana, who had chosen to accompany the two wardens, along with Wynne and Zevran. Oghren, Natia, and Sten had stayed behind, holding their camp "against intruders," as Oghren had put it. Likely Oghren was already drunk, Sten was hunting with Max, and Natia was the only one truly guarding anything. Leliana and Zevran had come along to support their respective lovers, leaving Alistair without that support. She wondered if he felt alone at all…

"I am fine, Leliana," she replied, looking back up to the cage that had once held a deserter, and now held only his remains. "Just… remembering. It feels like so long ago. I feel like a completely different person."

Leliana came up next to her, lacing her gloved fingers through the mage's. "I don't think that's unexpected, Solona. You _are_ a different person. You've been out of the Circle for almost half a year, and you are now the Warden-Commander of Ferelden, as well as an arcane warrior. Not to mention all of the things we have done since Ostagar."

Solona smirked, looking down upon her lover. "Nor to mention all of the things _we've_ done, just you and I. I never expected I'd be tied up and have to wait for you to return, _that's_ for certain."

She received a smack on her arm for that. "Wicked girl!"

Solona just laughed. "What? That is exactly what happened!"

"Because both of us won _and_ lost a wager!"

Solona just rolled her eyes. "Yes, because that makes it so much more normal."

Leliana just stared up at her for a moment. "I suppose you have a point…" Moving away from the mage, the bard approached the prisoner cages. "Who was he, do you think?"

"A deserter," Solona responded simply.

Leliana turned, one brow lifted. "You _know_ this?"

Solona nodded, coming up alongside her while examining the skeleton. It had bits of connective tissue still attached, but had largely been picked over by the carrion birds, one of which hopped along in the distance, poking here and there in the snow before moving on. "Yes. I spoke with him, actually. The day before the great battle. I… no one had bothered to feed him since he'd been stripped and put in there. He'd been there for _days_ … I snuck him part of my meal that evening. He downed my water like a man dying of thirst. I suppose he _was_ a man dying of thirst."

Leliana put a hand to her mouth. "Oh my… even a deserter doesn't deserve such treatment!"

Solona shook her head. "I agree, though given what we later faced… anyone who would leave their brethren to die from the darkspawn, who would abandon the field for their own selfish…" She sighed. "I suppose that is not very fair of me, not very empathetic. But he did not even have the taint to live with for the rest of his life. He needed only to fight as a soldier, and hopefully someday go home, to a normal life. How could he desert us all to save himself?"

Leliana sighed. "I do not know, Solona. But selfishness is sometimes difficult to overcome. And the darkspawn… they are not like a normal enemy, my love. I certainly cannot blame him for being frightened, for not wanting to face them. And in the end, he would likely have died on the battlefield, given the massacre here."

"Yet because he deserted, he died in this cage instead, naked and with no honor left intact. Poor sod."

They stood together for a moment, Solona staring right through the skeleton, thinking about how old she felt now compared to the girl who had drunk the darkspawn's blood-potion with little choice in the matter. She had been numb at the time, knowing she could die but also knowing she had literally nowhere else to go – she would be made Tranquil for her crimes with Jowan at the Circle. So she had accepted the chalice and taken a sip, forcing herself to swallow even as her gorge rose. Pain had lanced through her body then, originating in her throat and following the path the tainted blood had taken. She had fallen to her knees, and then the next thing she had known was Duncan and Alistair's faces looking down upon her when she awoke.

She hadn't felt any different when she had regained her feet. And yet when she stood by Alistair, she had felt _something_ ; some kind of kinship as they visited the quartermaster. _"I'll teach you to use it_ ," he had told her, indicating that she should have the sword on her just in case her magic failed her in some way. She had hefted it uncertainly, not sure if she should be friendly with him – it had not been that long since her hair had been shorn and her face forcibly marked, by a templar – but she had accepted it nonetheless, strapping it to her back next to her staff. They had spent every waking moment together since.

"Come," the mage finally said, taking her lover's hand. "Let us go see what the others have found."

* * *

Alistair looked up at Wynne. "So it's true? Cailan had convinced the forces of Orlais ally against the darkspawn?"

Wynne merely nodded, nose still buried in her own scroll. "Empress Celene was merely awaiting his response!"

Alistair narrowed his eyes. "A response that never came and now never will, thanks to Loghain's treachery."

"Never is a long time, Alistair," Wynne said, finally looking up at the future king. "Give it time and let cooler heads prevail. There will be peace between us yet."

Alistair nodded, then smirked. "Well, I hope you live to see it, Wynne, what with your age and everything."

"Why, you little whelp! I-"

Zevran finally cut in. "While I always appreciate watching Wynne flay someone alive, Solona and Leliana have seen fit to join us."

Alistair and Wynne both turned their attention to the approaching pair. Zevran had ccracked his way into the chest at their feet, which happened to hold a great deal of important things from King Cailan, including correspondence from the Empress of Orlais herself. The king had been working on further peace and cooperation between the two nations. And Loghain Mac Tir had sabotaged it. The elf had a feeling Solona would have things to say about this new development.

He watched the two women approach, hand-in-hand, a bird hopping around off in the distance behind them. Leliana had been incredibly angry with Solona over this entire venture. He had known it from the moment Solona had informed the rest of them of her intention to go confront Flemeth, noting that the bard was not gathered with them, as well as the strain in Solona's face. And once she had confessed it, he had found Leliana's solution to take her anger out on Morrigan a smart one – she knew her anger with Solona would burn out, but things would not be peaceful if she took action against her lover. So she took action against the one who would put her lover in danger, and gave Solona only silence until she had calmed. At least, that is how Zevran assumed it had gone, given the two days of silence and then their sudden emergence together from their tent, all smiles and japes.

He was silently been thankful that Wynne had never seen fit to give him the silent treatment. He was not sure he would be able to handle it as gracefully as Solona had.

Now, however, things seemed to be back to normal for the two. They were laughing and jesting, and a few times since they reached Flemeth, late in the night, his sensitive ears could pick up the telltale sounds of their lovemaking. They were women of exquisite taste in methods, if he could trust what he heard, which he did – he considered himself a connoisseur of sorts when it came to lovemaking. And it surprised him not in the least that Leliana, curvy little woman that she was, would dominate over the giant, powerful arcane warrior in the bedchamber. Solona was not a dominant person by nature, after all, so when she had need intimidating or leading people in public, it was a mask she had to wear. When she was alone with Leliana, she could relax, remove the mask, and be herself. Leliana, on the other hand, was a very dominant personality, living up to the stereotype of the fiery redhead. But she was not in charge of anything, nor did anyone important require her opinion. In fact, as a bard, she had learned to hug the shadows, to be completely moldable to the target's wishes and desires – and this, too, was a mask. In the bedchamber, finally with a lover who matched her own desires so nicely, she could unleash her need to take charge. It all made perfect sense to Zevran, and he was happy they had in each other someone who fit so beautifully with the other.

Being dominant or submissive in that way had never really appealed to him, however. He couldn't imagine that kind of bedsport with _Wynne_ , certainly. He had always been more than happy to have things be as equal as possible when he slept with someone, and was extremely uncomfortable if a lover wished to take charge _or_ if someone wanted _him_ to do so. Sometimes human men would attempt to throw him around, and they often ended up in a chokehold on the floor. With men _and_ with women, he wanted someone who would meet him halfway, giving as good as they took, with suggestions and wants and desires of their own. Wynne was an ideal lover. And on top of that… he loved her. It was simple, and yet profound.

He supposed that's how love was, when uncomplicated by external problems: profoundly simple; simply profound.

Shaking his head, he returned to the present, seeing that Leliana and Solona were almost upon them, and that Alistair and Wynne had returned to the scrolls they had been reading. Standing, he ventured over to greet the warden and the bard.

"Did you find anything interesting?" he asked by way of greeting.

Solona shook her head. "No, nothing but bodies… and a strangely hopping bird."

"Ah yes, the carrion too full to fly. At least someone got something good out of this bloodbath," he remarked, spying the bird again, hopping from snow hill to snow hill, picking briefly before moving on. "We, on the other hand, found something I think you'll find _very_ interesting," he added, his eyes landing back upon the taller human's face.

"Oh? What is it?"

"Come and see for yourself," he replied, turning and leading them the last ten or so paces to the remnants of the king's pavilion.

"Solona!" Alistair exclaimed, jumping up and bringing her the scroll he had been perusing. "Cailan was in contact with the Empress of Orlais! She had troops ready to send alongside the Grey Wardens of Orlais, and was just awaiting his word!"

Solona knit her brows. "What? That means he was brokering peace… Let me read the whole thing," she said, snatching the scroll out of his hands, taking the one offered her by Wynne, and turning away to concentrate. It only took her a few minutes, which didn't surprise Zevran – she _had_ spent the last fifteen years living the life of a scholar; a scholar who was learning magic, but a scholar nonetheless.

"He was brokering peace with Orlais… and nobody knew it," the mage finally murmured, looking up at the end.

"Oh, I suspect someone knew it," Zevran countered, bending into the chest to retrieve a dagger stashed there. Handing it to Alistair while catching his eye meaningfully, he continued. "Your Teyrn Mac Tir knew, I suspect, and he _did not_ like it. He was Cailan's most trusted advisor, yes? As well as his father-in-law, and his father's best friend?"

"That's right," Alistair confirmed, looking thoughtful as he contemplated the dagger he'd been handed – a dagger that bore the Theirin family crest. Slipping off the belt for his daggers and sliding the sheath for the Theirin blade upon it, he looked back up as he questioned Zevran. "Why is that so important?"

"Well, if Cailan would tell _anyone_ of his plans, it would be the Hero of River Dane – in addition to all those other ways he knew the man, yes? I can't imagine that a general who worked so hard to get Orlais _out_ would be happy about a young, inexperienced pup inviting his country's oppressors back _in_."

"Sweet Andraste! Are you suggesting that Loghain did all of this because Cailan didn't hold the same grudge against Orlais?!" Alistair exclaimed, looking wildly from Zevran to Wynne, Solona, and Leliana. The look on everyone else's face made it clear that they agreed with Zevran. The warden's eyes then slid across the camp to the dead bodies lying buried in the snow. "But… that's so _unnecessary_! To kill your king, to rob your country of the Grey Wardens during a Blight, just because of a… childish _grudge_! For which all these people are dead!"

Wynne placed a hand upon his arm. "While I agree that his response was unjustified, Alistair, think of it like this: what if someone wanted you to ally _with_ the darkspawn, against any foe?"

The look on both wardens' faces made it clear what they thought of that idea.

Zevran continued where Wynne left off. "If I had to guess, I would say Loghain decided to take matters into his own hands. And he is the worst kind of traitor, too, because he thinks he is right. He thinks _Cailan_ was the traitor, and that he himself saved his nation. I highly doubt he will _ever_ see reason. You will have to kill him, after you discredit him as the arl plans. There is no other way; he is too powerful, too influential, and far too martyr-like, as a common man raised to a Teyrn and a war-hero."

"Wouldn't executing him just make him more of a martyr?" Solona asked with a frown.

It was Leliana who answered. "Not if you discredit him first. If you expose all of his crimes, which, given that he's committed regicide, far outweigh his heroics, then execute him as a traitor… he will not be remembered as a martyr. He will be remembered as a misguided man who outgrew his usefulness to a monstrous degree."

Zevran nodded in confirmation. "Exactly what I was thinking, as well."

"It's uncanny how you two know what the arl's plan was without even having been in our meeting with him," Alistair pointed out, smirking a little.

Zevran grinned. "Good men forget that sneaky little bastards like myself and our bard here can often predict exactly how they think. How else do you think I was so good at being an assassin?"

Alistair snorted, shaking his head for a moment before becoming deadly serious. "Well, killing Loghain is not something I will have a problem doing. This entire _fucking_ slaughterhouse of a battlefield is his doing."

"And now you are talking like a king, Alistair," Zevran said, smiling. "I wasn't completely sure before, but now I am – you are _exactly_ what we need in a leader right now."

Solona smirked. "'We?' You consider yourself Fereldan now, do you? You wish to stay here, in our country that smells of wet dog?"

Zevran couldn't help but look to Wynne before looking up at the mage warden. "I suppose I do, Solona. I am feeling… camaraderie with you all. Perhaps the Grey Wardens need assassins? Or the crown, certainly."

Alistair cleared his throat. "Perhaps the _king_ needs _advisors_ who are accustomed to being sneaky little bastards," he suggested, a half-smile pulling at his lips. Then he turned to Wynne. "As well as a senior enchanter from the Circle who is already the mother he never had?"

Wynne smiled, but Zevran saw the glint in her eye. "Come along, Alistair. It has been a long day, and we are not done yet. By the lines around your eyes, I dare say you look as old as I."

He snorted. "And if I may say so, m'lady, you appear to be getting younger by the day."

Wynne's eyes flashed, and Zevran mentally prepared himself for the tongue-lashing she would deliver. "Be careful who you flirt with, young man. When you wake up beside me tomorrow morning, I'll be back to reminding you of your mother."

Leliana and Solona almost died choking back their laughter, while Alistair's mouth flapped open and closed like a dying fish. "B-beside you?"

She cocked a hip. "You heard what I said." Glancing over to Zevran, she added, "It would not be the first time I woke to a younger man in my bed."

Alistair frowned, a ridiculously childish expression in light of their joking. "Are all women this evil and conniving when they grow old?"

"Just me, my dear," Wynne responded with a chuckle, heading off toward the tower in the distance without another word.

* * *

They lost any good reason to joke as they entered the Tower of Ishal. The bodies of the dead had not been exposed to the elements in here, causing a ghastly stench the hit them like a physical force the moment the doors opened. Solona wanted retch almost immediately, but breathing through her mouth a moment allowed her to control the urge. It was with furrowed brows all around that they entered the tower together.

All they saw at first were dead bodies. But when Solona got a closer look at the first human body, it was too much. Unable to control the urge any longer, she ran a few strides away from the others and unleashed the contents of her stomach. She continued to vomit as the sight revisited her – the bodies looked shrunken while sticking out of their armor, the bones exposed in some places, with puddles of liquid surrounding them, the faces no longer recognizable. Coupled with the smell it was just too much. She had seen battle, but rarely with creatures other than darkspawn, and they burned the bodies specifically to avoid leaving a trail of decay like this.

"We cannot stay in here long," she heard Wynne say. The small hand on her back had to be Leliana's, for which she was grateful. "Disease is fond of resting with the dead. Some say it is the Maker's punishment for not honoring the dead properly, but for whatever the reason, we do not want to expose ourselves for longer than necessary."

Solona finally felt as though she was through. The last few heaves had produced nothing, merely making her uncomfortable and very aware of the foul taste in her mouth. Standing and taking the water skin offered her by Leliana, she rinsed her mouth out liberally before taking several swallows. Turning back to her companions, she apologized for the delay.

"First time seeing a rotting corpse, I assume?" Zevran asked.

"Yes," she answered simply.

Nodding, he said, "Well, given that they've been locked in here for months with no air and no elements, I can't really blame you for that reaction. Besides, it's good for reminding us mere mortals that the arcane warrior who can shoot electricity from her hands is still human," he finished with a smirk.

"Aw, I'm touched by your concern, Zevran," she quipped, carefully avoiding looking closely as they proceeded to make their way through that first room with its strange idols the darkspawn set up in their encampments.

"You are all right, though, yes?" This was Leliana, having remained by her side as they resumed their journey into the bowels of the tower.

Solona nodded. "I will be fine. We won't stay in here long. We just wanted to see how the darkspawn got in here in such numbers."

It didn't take them long to find the tunnel's entrance – it took up almost the entire floor of the room with the staircase leading to the second level. Within, it was darker than any night sky.

"Do you think it's a bad idea to enter?" Alistair asked, stooping and peering in.

"Probably," Solona answered, mirroring his stance. She saw only cold earth and stone.

"Want to anyway?"

She smirked, nodding. "Yes."

"What?!" Leliana started, but Solona and Alistair had already dropped into the large tunnel. From the look of things, the darkspawn had swarmed out like ants. The thought made Solona shudder.

It took only a few minutes to walk the length of the tunnel. It was steep, but smooth from the hundreds of feet that had stomped the dirt down as they dug the thing. This made the footing less treacherous is some ways – no obstacles to navigate – and yet more treacherous in others – namely, it was difficult not to slide on the smoothest, steepest sections. They all made it out the other end intact, despite the occasional slide.

The tunnel opened into the bowels of the fortress. It was completely dark down here, Wynne and Solona having to finally light the ends of their staves, the faint light from the windows in the room above now a distant dream. Holding up a lit torch – thanks to Solona's spell - from his pack, Alistair led the way, wending his way around support columns to a door on the opposite side of the room.

A glint along the far wall caught Solona's eye, and she whipped her head around, holding her staff – gifted to her in Orzammar after the one she'd had from the Circle had burned from her self-immolation – high into the air to try to get the light to further pierce the gloom. "Did anybody else see that?"

"See what?" Zevran asked, moving to her side and peering into the darkness with her.

"I just thought I saw something reflected in the light," she murmured, still not able to see to the far wall.

"It was probably just something made of metal, my love," Leliana conjectured, looking along with her and Zevran in the direction Solona gazed. "There were likely to be discarded weapons down here after the battle."

"Perhaps…"

A deafening sound boomed through the room, somewhere between a hiss and a growl. Accompanying it was Alistair's yelp and the sound of his armor hitting the stone floor. Turning and beginning to run in one move, it took a moment for Solona to process what she saw in the glow of the torch now sputtering upon the ground: Alistair was on his back, grappling with a giant creature with many legs. Its body was easily the size of Alistair's, the legs sprouting out from there to make it truly enormous. It looked like a giant, distorted spider, and the awful screeching noise filling the chamber came from _it_.

Pointing her staff in that direction, she felt the curtain that kept her arcane magics at bay melt away, the power filling her up and surrounding her. _Spiders hate light, fire, water… anything that disturbs their rest, really_ , she thought to herself. It didn't help all that much, however, as Alistair was so close to the creature that she would have a difficult time avoiding hurting him as well.

Thinking fast, she called her lover's name. "Leli!" She could hear the strange quality of her voice, knowing it was some aspect of "belonging to the Fade," as the Spirit of the Lady had told her, but not knowing anything else about it. _I wonder if that is something that can be controlled as well…_ "Shoot it!"

A second later, an arrow whizzed past the mage. Focusing upon it, feeling time seem to slow, she engulfed the head of the arrow in flame, channeling her magic into the projectile to feed the flames even once it embedded itself in the mutated spider's body.

The creature screeched again, shying away from the flame, leaving Alistair able to find his feet and his sword. It backed away from the arrow embedded in its side, slamming into the wall before sliding along it, shrieking its fear – wherever it went, the light and heat and pain followed. Solona approached the creature, now backed into a corner and trying to get further away, and drove the tip of her sword right into the center of its head, between many eyes bright with the reflections of the flame. Willing the curtain back into existence, the mage stopped the flow of magic to the arrow, no longer needing to fuel the flames now catching upon the creatures body.

Alistair came up next to her, kicking one of the creature's many legs. "How did it get to be like _that_?!"

Solona shook her head. "I don't know. Perhaps… perhaps it is tainted?"

"Wouldn't we have felt it?"

Solona shrugged. "Who knows? We only know of darkspawn. _Your_ taint doesn't cause my skin to crawl. Maybe it ate of darkspawn flesh after the battle here, and it changed it?"

"A reasonable hypothesis," Wynne murmured from behind her. "But we'll likely never know."

"Well, I'll be happy if we never run into one again," Alistair said, shuddering for a moment before going to retrieve his now guttering torch. "Let's hope it didn't have tainted spider babies, yes?"

"Agreed," Solona replied.

"You are all right, Alistair?" Wynne asked, coming up to him with a hand stretched out, feeling his cheek and forehead.

He nodded, though allowed her quick examination. "Yes, I'm all right. It couldn't puncture my armor. Smelled awful, though."

"You mean worse than you _yourself_ smell?" Zevran asked, feigning surprise quite well.

"Oh, stuff it, Zevran. I know it's been a while since I've had a bath, you don't need to remind me. We're all a bit ripe, I'd imagine."

Solona just grinned, moving past her fellow warden to the door. Opening it, she breathed in the fresh air of the afternoon, light and a few flurries of snow drifting in around her. "You know, we really aren't. It's funny that you haven't figured out why Zevran and I keep volunteering to clean the dishes, even when we cook."

Alistair knit his brows, coming up behind her and moving out into the sun, extinguishing his torch in the snow. "Why?"

Zevran answered him. "We use the boiled water for the dishes on ourselves first, Alistair. Mix it with icy river water, and you have the perfect temperature for a sponge bath before rinsing the soap from our bowls and other implements with it."

"So… I'm the _only_ one that hasn't had a bath since we left Redcliffe, then?"

Zevran smirked. "I imagine you would find company in Oghren, but yes, everyone else has found some way to bathe. I believe Solona has even washed the dog, while you and I were infirm at the hut."

Solona laughed, along with the other women, nodding confirmation. She had, indeed, forced Max to stand still – whining the whole time – while she doused him with a water spell, soaped him up, and then doused him once more. It had been good practice for a spell for which she normally had no need.

Their laughter halted abruptly as they finally took in the scene before them. Bodies littered the ground, which wasn't that different from the main camp or its approach – except that these bore the unmistakable griffon standard of the Grey Wardens, on shields and breastplates, and embossed upon the hilts of swords and axes. The bodies were completely decayed, mummified in their armor like those inside had been, though without the smell or fluids. Swords, shield, axes, pikes, bows – all manner of weapons were strewn about the field, from enemy and ally alike.

A particularly dense clump of bodies, only partially buried by snow in this more sheltered area, caught Solona's attention, and it was with mounting trepidation in her heart that she approached it.

"King Cailan," she breathed, spotting the royal armor and strands of brittle, golden hair sticking out from beneath the helm. What made them all stop and gape in horror, however, was the state of his armor – and therefore the body encased within. It was twisted, crushed, several large punctures along his ribs and at his stomach, like a giant hand had lifted him and crushed him to death. Spotting the remains of a particularly large ogre nearby, Solona suspected that was _exactly_ how their liege lord had met his untimely death.

"No – Duncan!" Solona lifted her eyes up to Alistair, who had spotted something near the ogre and run toward it. Following him, she slid to a halt as he dropped to his knees. "Duncan…"

At her fellow warden's feet was a helmeted, severed head, its body several feet away. She recognized Duncan's armor instantly. _So this is how he met his end…_

Turning to her companions, Solona frowned. "I know it will take some time… but we would like to honor our brothers, and our king, by giving them a proper funeral pyre. Every warrior here deserves one, but we are only so many. This clearing is small enough that we should be able to gather the bodies of our comrades."

They began working without a word, simply nodding and turning to seek out human remains; lifting disturbingly light and stiff bodies, armor, decapitated heads, and gathering them in the place where Cailan and Duncan had died. Zevran found Cailan's sword and shield rather quickly – the shield still being attached to Cailan's arm – and delivered them to Alistair. After a quick internal debate, the warden strapped them to his back along with his own weapons. It would weigh him down, but nobody said anything as he went about the work of gathering remains himself.

Solona took it upon herself to examine the ogre, finding Duncan's unique blades still buried inside its remains. Pulling them free was difficult, given that she had to physically climb atop the giant ribs caged by mummified skin, but she was rewarded with the Warden-Commander of Ferelden's weapons. These were the weapons the Warden-Commander always carried, for hundreds of years. When one died, the next took them up – it was a tradition Alistair happened to know, and to pass on to Solona, and the new Commander would continue this tradition. She may not be able to use the sword like her special enchanted sword as a conduit for her magic, but she would carry them on her person nonetheless. Sliding the sheaths for both weapons off the dead Commander of the Grey, she secured them to her belt, promising no one in particular that she would care for the weapons that night.

Only an hour later, they were gathered, ready to set fire to the pyre. There was very little wood to be had, but the remains themselves were dry and flammable, so Solona had simply decided to blast them with flames herself. Readying herself, asking everyone else to keep behind her, she unleashed a fountain of flames from both hands, bathing the corpses of her comrades, wardens and the king's soldiers alike, in cleansing flame.

"He was a good man," Alistair started, "who hoped too much and died too young." _What an odd way to describe Duncan_ , Solona thought to herself, watching as the mummified bodies caught fire. "He deserves this honor, little though it is. I hope I can be as idealistic a king and leader, though more successful in my dealings." _Oh. He's talking about Cailan. His brother. I should ask him how he feels about that particular kinship._

Ending her spell, she stood with her companions silently for another hour, watching as the flames reduced their comrades to ash, to be spread by the winds throughout Ferelden, to feed her forests and nourish her lands. As the last flame sank into the embers, Solona turned, wordlessly beginning the long trek back to the camp maintained by Sten, Oghren, and Natia. It was strange, but she really couldn't wait to snuggle up with Max and Leliana that night after a good meal with her companions, safe and warm and secure with those she loved most – those, she was surprised and pleased to realize, she considered family.

In the distance, the hopping bird continued on, intent on finding its next meal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my edits, I changed "the birds flew south" to them flying north, because in Thedas, Ferelden is south of the equator. Thank you to the original reviewer for reminding me of this
> 
> A note on Hopping Bird. If you play this DLC, you will find a bird hopping. Like, one or two of them. I was chatting with Raven Sinead while playing, and found this bird puzzling. We then started a very silly inside joke wherein DA is told from the POV of voyeuristic Hopping Bird. It's too long to explain, but all the references to Hopping Bird are because of that. I put six references to this silly bird just for you, Raven Sinead! I hope you appreciate it, because everyone else is gonna be like, "WTF?!"


	51. Denerim, One Last Time

Four days later, they met the arl's men on the main road from Redcliffe to Denerim. It was snowing again. There had been several warm days since Ostagar, enough to melt the snow that had fallen, but this day seemed to drive home that winter was indeed almost upon them. Alistair drew his cloak further about himself atop his horse, urging the beast forward so he could speak with the soldier who met them at the back of the baggage train.

"Greetings!" he shouted, raising both hands in the universal sign of being unarmed. As he got closer, the soldier recognized him, calling out that the wardens had returned. Burying his hands with the reins back in the depths of his cloak, Alistair led his companions past the small baggage train, seeking out the main contingent of soldiers ahead of them.

By the time they arrived, Teagan and Fergus were already heading toward them. Alistair could see the smile beaming from Fergus's face even at such distance, and he briefly wondered if there was anything that could make the man not handsome. _I bet he has no trouble with women…_ the thought died off as he remembered that Fergus's wife and child had been killed by Howe. He shuddered to think of how they had suffered before the man finally killed them. The Arl of Amaranthine was not known for being particularly merciful.

"Well met!" Teagan shouted as they closed in. "Is your warden business successfully done?"

"Yes," Alistair answered, now close enough that he had no need to shout. Coming to a halt a moment later, he dismounted. Everyone else in the arl's party was on foot except the arl and his wife, and Alistair was frankly tired of sitting in the saddle. A good stretch of his legs was called for.

"'Yes'? That's all you have for us?"

Smirking, Alistair shook his head, looking meaningfully to Solona, who was next off her animal. "No, that is most definitely not all. But there are too many ears out here for the news we carry."

Teagan wore a shrewd expression. "I see. Well, I'm sure you can share it with us when we make camp tonight. Come, we will tell my brother that you are back; he has been worried about you, Alistair."

Several hours later, as the servants and soldiers worked together to set up camp and cook their supper, Alistair found himself with little to do. Nights on the road with ten people had a particular rhythm: he would set up his tent, gather more firewood, go get water to start boiling for whatever they would be eating that night, and then sometimes clean up after supper. Usually he'd fit an hour of sparring in there somewhere, as well, usually while supper cooked. As an honored guest of the arl, and hopefully Ferelden's future king, he had literally nothing to do, actively discouraged from helping should he try. Once his tent was up, his hands were idle. He was not used to it. His life had always involved work, whether in the arl's house, in the Chantry, or as a Grey Warden.

As soon as the arl's (very large) tent was assembled, however, his idleness was over. Meeting Solona, Wynne, Leliana, and Zevran outside, he gave them a nod before leading them in.

"Ah, Alistair! Here you are, to share news of what you found, I hope?" Arl Eamon was seated at a chair, a small table in front of him, covered in scrolls. The business of the Arling didn't end just because its arl was not in his castle.

"Yes, Your Grace. We found something _very_ interesting on the fields of Ostagar," he said, taking the scrolls Wynne pulled from the satchel at her hip.

The arl visibly blanched. "Ostagar?! _That_ was the 'warden business' you had to take care of?!"

"Among other things, yes," Solona replied, clearly asserting her authority in this. Eamon narrowed his eyes at her, but said nothing more in protest.

"Very well. What did you find?" he asked instead.

Alistair offered him the scrolls. "A likely motive for Loghain's treachery."

Taking the parchments, Eamon read through them thoroughly before looking back up to the wardens and their companions. "This would certainly explain why he quit the field and left Cailan to die. He preserves his troops, and makes the king's death look like a casualty of war. I wonder where his disdain for the Grey Wardens comes in, though…" Eamon looked around the tent for a moment, taking in the fact that Alistair had Zevran and Leliana with him, in addition to the others. "Right. I'm sorry, but I'll need the tent cleared. In addition, someone should fetch Teagan and Fergus."

"Actually, Your Grace, I have to insist Zevran and Leliana stay."

"I'm sorry, Alistair, but this is for those involved-"

"They are already involved, Eamon," he said, interrupting. He knew it was risky, but he also knew that once Eamon got going, it was hard to argue – or even to shut him up. "Zevran will be a special advisor to the crown when all is said and done, and I trust both of them with my life."

"They also already know all there is to know," Solona pointed out, trying – and failing – to hide her amusement.

Eamon just stared, a slight frown on his face as he watched them. Finally, he gave a slight nod. "Very well. They may stay. I hope they'll have the manners not to interrupt as _you_ have, Alistair."

That did it. Solona actually snorted out a laugh. "Sorry," she quickly apologized, turning around to compose herself.

Eamon shook his head, a slight smile pulling at his lips. "Will someone please go get my brother and the rightful Teyrn of Highever? We have business to attend to."

* * *

Morrigan lifted her head from the fire to find that the dwarf with the most offensive of odors was coming their way. She was at a fire with Natia and Sten, contemplating the odd relief she felt at the return of her travel companions. It had been a long week surrounded by boisterous soldiers who kept trying to flirt with her, and on the second night she had discovered, much to her chagrin, that she was incapable of casting even the simplest of spells. Given how she had left things with the Chantry harlot, it did not take her long to deduce that the bard must know how to make magebane. But it took another day for her to figure out that it was in the wine and water supply. Morrigan knew how to make the antidote, but had none of the ingredients with her. She would either need to await the party's return, or purchase the ingredients in Denerim once they arrived. And in the meantime, she had no choice but to drink the poisoned water and wine, and stay near the arl and his wife – nobody had tried to do anything without her permission, but she tired of the flirting.

Her attention was brought back to her current situation by Oghren's proximity. "You can turn into animals, aye? Like, cats and wolves and things?"

She lifted a brow. "When the desire strikes me."

"Have you ever, uh… you know. 'When in Tevinter…'"

She almost laughed. He was just so predictable. Natia, on the other hand, _did_ laugh, burying her chortle in her hands. "That is a most curious little mind you have, dwarf. And what if I had? Would that thought comfort you during your lonely nights? I know Natia has no desire for you, much as you have tried."

Instead of being insulted, he merely breathed heavily a moment before asking his next question. "Have you ever changed _during_?"

She knit her brows. " _Why_ did you walk over here just to ask me this?"

"How do we know you're truly a woman? Or even human! You could be a chip mouse… or a nug! Ha! Imagine that!"

Morrigan rolled her eyes. "Why yes! I'm a nug, in human form, come to observe your kind."

Oghren snickered. "Nugs are good with extra sauce. I'm just saying."

"Oghren, take your nug-humping fantasies elsewhere!" Natia came up behind him, gripping his ear and yanking hard. " _She's_ not interested, either."

"Ow! Dammit, woman! I'm a grown warrior of the Warrior Caste! You can't just tote me around by the ear like a boy fresh off th' teat!"

"You're casteless now, and in desperate need of a bath," she countered, maintaining her hold and dragging him away.

"I helped kill that witch's mother! A sodding _dragon_! The least she could do is wet my flagpole a little!"

"Oh, by the Stone…" Natia released him, raised both hands, and brought them together on either side of his head. He howled in pain, his ears having been soundly boxed, and staggered away, muttering about evil women and their inaccessibility.

Natia came back to the fire. "I'm sorry about him, Morrigan. He is… damn."

"What?"

"Well, I was going to say that he is a terrible example of my people… but other than his idea of romance, he's actually one of the better ones. He doesn't care about status, not really. He's an incredible warrior, and a great teacher. And he clearly loved Branka like no other before things went sour."

"And I care about this because…?"

The dwarf shrugged. "I don't know. He's the only other dwarf around. Maybe I feel the need to explain some of his bad habits away."

"You should stop caring about him so," Morrigan replied, turning back to the fire.

Natia didn't respond, merely shrugging before moving to her tent. Morrigan frowned. She had not intended to drive the small woman away. It had actually been a conversation starter. She wanted to know what happened with Flemeth, but no one had offered any information. Indeed, Solona had not yet even sought her out. The most information she had gotten was from the useless drunk! But information was information, she supposed – she took what comfort she could in knowing that it would take some time for her mother to be after her again.

She was not fool enough to think Flemeth well and truly gone from this world.

"Ah, Solona! Good, I had a question for you." Morrigan was pulled from her musings by Natia calling across the fire. Looking up, the witch saw Solona, Alistair, and the rest who had disappeared into the arl's tent approaching. She had not actually even seen them up-close yet, and she found her heart inexplicably beating harder than it should.

"What was that, Natia?"

"Can you force Oghren into a bath the way you did Max the other day? It's getting so bad that I'm starting to feel bad for his pony."

"I heard that, Natia! Sodding women, always telling you what to do…" The rest of the dwarf's mumbling was drowned out by laughter.

" _I_ would appreciate a proper debrief on what happened in your confrontation!" Morrigan snapped, narrowing her eyes at the party.

"Ah, yes, there you are, Morrigan," Solona answered, nodding once as she closed the distance between them. "I thought it best we not speak until Leliana had a chance to, uh… _get_ you something."

The bard held out a vial. Morrigan took it, eyeing it with suspicion. "What is it?"

"The antidote," Leliana said simply. "One drop in each wineskin will do. I would put it in the main supply of water, but it is too difficult to tamper with at the moment, under guard as it is. I will take care of it once we arrive in Denerim tomorrow."

"I see. And that is it? You are not even going to apologize for leaving me utterly defenseless while you were away?"

Leliana's eyes narrowed. "You care about apologies? Besides, you were in no danger from the arl's most loyal men, whereas _we_ faced your mother for you. And you have been learning how to defend yourself by hand should your magic fail you. I would not have actually left you defenseless, Morrigan, no matter how much I _dislike_ you."

"Well, at least you admit that you dislike me. There is that, I suppose." Morrigan pocketed the antidote. She believed that the bard would make it to specification. Leliana would not do all that work to help kill her mother just to poison Morrigan when she returned.

"I-" Leliana began, only to be cut off by her lover.

"Perhaps I could have a moment alone with Morrigan, my love?"

Leliana shut her mouth, glaring for a moment before turning and stalking off toward her tent.

"Thank you. Honestly, given that she poisoned everyone's water just to get at _me_ shows how manipulative the wench-"

Solona rounded on her, her hand brightening momentarily as an icy blast filled Morrigan's vision, briefly chilling her down to the bone. "Dammit, Morrigan! Stop that! We all just went and confronted your mother – who shifted into a high dragon, _by the way_! We almost lost Zevran and Alistair, both! Thank the Maker for Leliana's supply of magebane, Morrigan, or who knows _what_ damage Flemeth would have been capable of causing! Leaving you defenseless here was not the wisest course of action, but in the end, you were safe! Meanwhile, we all risked our lives _for you_. And your gratitude is to insult us? No wonder nobody can stand you. I think I gave Alistair the right advice to avoid trying to woo you – I'm not sure you're capable of truly caring, Morrigan."

Morrigan simply gaped at Solona, who now produced a large volume that had been tucked under her arm. Shoving it into Morrigan's chest, she grunted, "Your mother is dead. You're welcome."

In Morrigan's hands was her mother's grimmoire. Ignoring the bothersome guilt that tried to surface in response to Solona's little speech, Morrigan disappeared into her tent without a word, hugging the heavy volume close to her chest.

* * *

Two days later, they made their way into Denerim. It was very strange, being able to walk right into the city out in the open. The wardens, while fugitives, were here under the protection of Arl Eamon. In addition, it was important they show their faces, riding into the city tall and proud; they had to inspire nobles who knew them not, after all.

Solona was quietly thankful that her horse had quit being so fractious months earlier. It would not do to be thrown from her animal while trying to impress the nobles.

"Your Grace, I have never been to Denerim before, not like this. What can you tell me about the city?" Leliana asked. Solona looked over to her lover, eyebrows knit in question. Leliana merely smiled, then winked. Solona grinned. Her lover was laying on her charms for the arl, winning him over. He still was not completely convinced that she and Zevran were wholly reliable. Solona was privately impressed. Leliana was being both flirtatious and _incredibly_ appropriate and professional. Oh, but she was good at what she did.

"Denerim is the heart and soul of Ferelden," he replied, beaming up at the walls of the city, whose gates they had just passed through. "It was the city of King Calenhad and the birthplace of Andraste. It is as stubborn as a mabari, and as _good_ to have on your side." Here, Max let out a happy little bark, running a quick circle around Solona's horse. "If we defeat Loghain here, the rest of the nation will follow us. By calling the Landsmeet, I will have struck the first blow. The advantage, for the moment, is ours."

"Ah, yes, he will be forced to make a move sooner than he is ready. Hopefully we can jerk him into making a mistake," Leliana observed. Solona smirked as Eamon looked over to Leliana with surprise etched on his face.

"Indeed. Perhaps I have not given you enough credit, Lady."

"You continue to be surprised by the women of your country, my husband," Isolde murmured, only audible to those riding closest to the arl and his wife. "When will you believe me that we are capable of more than you seem to think?"

Eamon merely shook his head. "It takes one time to change one's ways completely, my dear," was all he said in reply. Addressing Leliana, he added, "I am sorry for my assumptions. And I am _glad_ that the wardens have had such a sharp mind to advise them while you have been on the road."

Leliana merely smiled, blushing a little. "I understand playing your cards close to your chest, Your Grace. And… thank you… for your praise, and for such a beautiful description of Ferelden's capital. It would serve well in any ballad of the city."

"Given your, uh, former source of employment, I will take that as a compliment," the arl remarked. All Eamon knew was that Leliana was a former minstrel and lay sister for the Chantry. He was none the wiser as to just how interesting his statement was, given that she was actually a former Orlesian bard.

Solona's attention was caught then by a figure walking quickly through the market square. Studying it a moment, she gasped, immediately jumping from her horse and tossing the reins to Leliana, hurrying away while ignoring the shouted inqueries. She barely even noticed that Max had followed her with a chuff. That face… it was so very familiar.

It belonged to her little sister.

Running through the crowd with ease – people tended to avoid a running figure sporting such generous weaponry – she found the girl had stopped just outside the Chantry.

"Revka?"

The figure turned, revealing a face as dark as her own but with warm, rich brown hair with hints of red, like Solona's had been as a very small girl. She was shorter than Solona was by almost a full head, wearing a plain, homespun dress with winter boots poking out from beneath the skirts and a plain cloak about her shoulders.

The girl studied her for a moment, eyebrows knit and head cocked to the side slightly. Presently, she gasped, a hand going to cover her mouth. "Solona?"

Solona nodded, still utterly shocked to have simply _run into_ her sister walking through the square. She supposed she noticed her out of all the others because there were so few dark-skinned people around, even in a bustling city like Denerim.

Her musings were cut short when her sister closed the distance between them, throwing her arms around Solona's shoulders and hugging her tight. "Oh, I wanted to kill Mother when she sent you away! Derek thinks you were merely caught, but I was awake when the templars came! I heard that it was our own parents who called for them. I can't believe you would return after all that!"

Solona, arms wrapped just as tightly around the girl's waist, responded with the first thing she thought of. "I'm just glad you don't think ill of me."

Finally pulling back, her sister placed a hand upon her cheek. "But what happened to you? A tattoo? Your hair? And why all this weaponry?" Before Solona could answer, Max finally butted in, pushing his head between them before jumping up on Revka, demanding attention. Laughing and petting his great head once he jumped back down, she asked, "And a dog? And it is a _mabari_?"

Solona wasn't quite sure how to explain. "A… a lot has happened since last we spoke. Perhaps we could speak out of range of prying Chantry ears?"

"Oh, yes! But where? We cannot go home…"

"I am here with the Arl of Redcliffe, under his protection. Come to his estate with me, and we can discuss what has happened since we met last spring."

Nodding, the girl allowed Solona to wrap her arm around her shoulder and lead her back toward the waiting horses and Leliana's near-bursting curiosity. So caught up in what was happening was she that Solona failed to see the narrowed eyes of the Chantry sister just inside the shadows cast by the Chantry's gates.

* * *

Leliana watched Solona walk back to the group, her horse's reins still in the bard's hands. She studied the girl as they walked, deducing that it was likely Solona's sister very quickly. The girl was fifteen, sixteen at most, wearing a simple homespun dress of light grey, a matching kerchief holding her hair back from her face. She and Solona had identically dark skin with matching light eyes, though where Solona's hair was a blinding white in the bright sunlight, the girl's was a gorgeous chestnut, the sun catching the red highlights in a way that entranced the eye. Perhaps that had matched once upon a time, as well, before Solona's hair had turned white?

"Leliana, this… is my sister, Revka. Revka, this is my…" Solona's eyes flicked up to Leliana's, panic showing in them. She smirked. Of course Solona didn't wish to say "lover," but what other description was there? That was precisely what they were – most recently that morning. All the extra time they had due to the arl's servants and soldiers taking care of chores in the camp meant a lot more sleep… and sex, as well.

" _Enchante_ , _mademoiselle_ ," she said, reaching a hand down to take the girl's – Revka's. "I am Leliana. Your sister is… very dear to me," she supplied, sitting back up after shaking the girl's hand.

"Leliana," the girl murmured, seeming to test it out. "How did you come to know my sister?" The girl's accent was less proper than Solona's. Perhaps because she had grown up a peasant, while Solona was raised a scholar?

Solona cut in before Leliana had to try to answer that one. Somehow, talk of her vision didn't seem like it would go over well. It was something she kept close to her chest these days. Indeed, only Solona, Alistair, and (unfortunately) Morrigan knew of it. "That is another thing we should discuss behind closed doors, I'm afraid. But I believe we are almost to Arl Eamon's estate. Would you like to ride with me?"

"I… have never ridden before…"

Leliana smiled as Solona showed Revka where to put her feet, helping the girl into the saddle – side-saddle, for her dress – before climbing up behind her. It would be an awkward ride for them, but it wouldn't last all that long – Arl Eamon and the rest of their companions had already passed through the gates to his estate up ahead. In fact, if they waited much longer, they would be the last to arrive.

Urging their horses forward, they caught up to the tail-end of the arl's soldiers. Wending their way to the front of the estate was easy enough on horseback, however, and when they neared the steps leading to the main entrance, a groom came to take their mounts. Dismounting, they rushed inside, poor Revka still without an explanation.

The arl turned to greet them as a servant led them into the great hall – Alistair's friend Ellia, actually. Leliana supposed she'd never been outside of Redcliffe. This would likely be one of her only opportunities. "Ah, Warden. And who is this?"

"This is my sister, Your Grace. Her parents live here in Denerim."

If he was confused by how Solona worded her reply, the arl gave no indication. "I see. Well, we shall make her comfortable. I'm afraid she'll have to wait to visit with you. We should discuss our first move immed-"

He cut himself off as the shout of a herald rang through the hall. A moment later, the sound of armored figures echoed all around. A man with a hooked nose and long, dark locks of hair headed the group of three. He was flanked by a woman with a sword much like Sten's strapped to her back, broad shoulders and angular features somewhat at odds with each other. Next to her was a graying man who towered over the other two.

"Ah, Loghain. This is… an honor that the Regent would find time to greet me personally."

 _So this is Loghain_ , Leliana thought to herself, _the one responsible for the carnage we saw at Ostagar_. There was nothing terribly remarkable about him… except for the air of intense calm he radiated. She recognized it at once. This man was all business, and could not be charmed, nor flirted with, nor misled or manipulated. As a target, he would have been exceedingly difficult. In the end, he likely would have required one of Zevran's skills to kill – someone getting physically close, without being seen, before striking quickly from the shadows. The skills of a bard would never work on such a man.

"How could I not welcome a man so important as to call every lord in Ferelden away from his estates while a Blight claws at our land?" Loghain's voice was somewhat higher than Leliana would have expected, slightly raspy, yet not unpleasantly so. He spoke with the accent of one common-born, and the rasp made it clear he was accustomed to shouting orders, as any general would.

Eamon's frowned. "The Blight is why I'm here. With Cailan dead, Ferelden _must_ have a king to lead it against the darkspawn-"

"Ferelden _has_ a strong leader," Loghain interjected, gesturing with one hand. "Its queen; and _I_ lead her armies."

"What is going on, Solona?" Leliana heard Revka whisper, luckily unheard by the nobles bickering ahead. Leliana turned and took the girl aside.

"Your sister is a Grey Warden, Revka. There is no time to explain, but we must let Regent and the arl discuss this without our interruption, yes?" The girl nodded, her eyes large, while Solona looked on with an expression of gratitude. Then Solona's eyes narrowed and she marched up next to Arl Eamon.

"Considering Ostagar, perhaps she needs a better general," Solona announced. _Well, if she wanted to enter the conversation memorably, she sure managed it_ , Leliana thought with a smirk.

Loghain's expression darkened. "I recognize you. You are the Grey Warden recruit. You have my sympathies on what happened to your order at Ostagar. Such a shame they should choose to turn on Ferelden and their king…"

Leliana braced herself, ready to go for either Solona or Alistair should they choose to try to move against Loghain and his poisonous words. Neither moved beyond tensing, however, a move likely only Leliana could recognize, knowing both as well as she did.

Solona raised an eyebrow after a moment, crossing her arms over her chest in a most disrespectful pose. "I do not accept your sympathies, ser."

"Get back, churl," the woman with Loghain suddenly spat, stepping forward with a scowl. "Your betters are talking." Solona tensed much more visibly, but otherwise did nothing but frown at the woman.

"Enough, Cauthrien," Loghain said, cutting her off with a raised hand. "This is neither the time nor the place." The woman nodded stiffly, stepping back to behind the regent. Loghain narrowed his eyes again before addressing Eamon once more. "There is talk that your illness left you feeble, Eamon. Some worry that you may no longer be fit to advise Ferelden."

Eamon actually let out a laugh, which echoed through the hall. "Illness? Why not call your poison by its true name? Not everyone at the Landsmeet will cast aside their loyalties as easily as you and these… sycophants," he replied, gesturing to the Loghain's two companions.

"How long you've been gone from court, Eamon," Loghain said, pacing to the side to bring the tall fellow into view. "Don't you recognize Rendon Howe, Arl of Amaranthine and Teryn of Highever?"

" _And_ current Arl of Denerim, since Urien's unfortunate fate at Ostagar." Rendon Howe's voice resided in his nose and throat. It reminded Leliana of a sniveling weasel, almost oily, and dripping with false loyalties. "The Regent has been… generous to those who prove loyal."

"You lying, traitorous _bastard_!"

Leliana turned on her heel, watching as Oghren and Natia both lent their aid in holding back Fergus Cousland, who had just slipped free of Teagan's restraining hold. "You murdered my family! Slaughtered my people – innocents! All under the banner of _friendship_!"

Loghain merely frowned. "So the Cousland traitor's son still lives? You house an awful lot of fugitives under your roof, Eamon."

"Fergus, please. This will help nothing," the arl hissed, looking sympathetic but also exasperated. "Please leave the room if you cannot be civil."

With murder in his eyes, Fergus turned, shaking off the hands that held him and marching stiffly from the room. Loghain's eyes followed him until he was gone before they snapped back to Eamon.

"I had hoped to talk you down from this rash course, Eamon. Our people are frightened, our king is dead, our land is under siege…. We _must_ be united now if we are to endure this crisis. Your own sister, Queen Rowan, fought tirelessly to see Ferelden restored. Would you see her work destroyed?! You divide our nation and weaken our efforts against the Blight! With your selfish ambitions to the throne-"

Solona interrupted with a deep frown upon her face. "What efforts can there be when you outlaw the Grey Wardens?"

Loghain turned to her once more, his face looking almost sad. "Cailan depended upon the Grey Wardens' prowess against the darkspawn, and look how well _that_ ended?" Shaking his head, he continued. "Let us speak of reality rather than tall tales. Stories will not save us."

Before anyone else could say anything in response to Loghain – Leliana had a crude joke forming about how Solona really was a tall tale, in both senses of the term – Eamon replied, his eyes hard as he regarded the traitor before him. "I cannot forgive what you've done, Loghain. Perhaps the Maker can, but not I. Our people deserve a king of the Theirin bloodline. Alistair will be the one to lead us to victory in this Blight."

Rather than look squeamish or quell in any way, Alistair merely stepped up next to Eamon and stared hard down upon Loghain, who only came up to his nose.

Loghain stepped right up to Alistair, not cowed by the taller man's stature. "The Emperor of Orlais also did not think I could bring him down. Expect no more mercy than I showed him. There is _nothing_ I would not do for my homeland."

Leliana didn't know why she said it. In fact, she truly should not have. But something compelled Leliana to speak, even as the Teryn and his companions turned to leave. "That was a long time ago, Teryn Mac Tir. Surely that past can be put behind you and Empress Celene?"

Loghain froze, turning slowly to look at her. His eyes held shock at first, changing quickly into loathing. "You house traitors even from our oppressors now, Eamon? The harlot you married wasn't enough? Now you bring one in _armed_?" Holding her eyes a moment longer, he finally continued his march outside. "If my guards see any of them outside your walls, they will be hanged for treason."

Nobody moved until it was clear Loghain and his companions were gone. "I am so sorry… I should have known that he would not respond well to my accent if he heard it," Leliana said, holding a hand over her face in embarrassment. Really, she was _better_ than that kind of mistake! "I spoke without thinking… I just wanted to make _him_ think."

"It's all right, Leliana," Alistair consoled her, coming to her side and patting her shoulder. "It just confirms our suspicions about this all being about Orlais. He was never going to change his mind."

"Solona… this is all so… _above_ me," Revka murmured, staring at her sister with wide eyes.

Eamon hummed. "Yes… perhaps you two can speak briefly before we meet. I have a sudden need to speak with the arlessa after that _scum_ insulted her so."

Solona nodded, coming to her sister's side. "Revka, I'm sorry you walked into thi-"

She was interrupted by heavy, armor-clad footfalls. Everyone looked up; Leliana half-expected it was Loghain re-entering the hall. Instead, a young man in light armor, the flaming sword of Andraste stamped upon his leather cuirass, marched into the room. He had light skin, light brown hair falling in loose curls from his head, and his face was clean-shaven. He would be handsome with a few more years, but looked only like an overgrown boy who thought himself awfully important, standing as if he owned the estate with feet spread apart and his sword held loosely by his side.

Suddenly, he raised his weapon, pointing it at Solona.

"Apostate! Remove your hands from my intended this instant!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no! What just happened?! Who is this asshole?! Dun dun dun!
> 
> And, since I completely disregarded the way in which the Amell warden is related to Leandra and the Hawkes in canon, I decided to at least throw a bone in the direction of canon and give Solona's sister the name of the woman who is supposed to be her mother. Plus I like the name. So there.


	52. Unexpected Visitors

"Orson, what are you doing here?!"

Solona, brows knit in confusion, turned to her sister, who shouted at the young templar. She turned back as he answered.

"Do not let him poison your mind, Revka!"

Oghren laughed. "Ya hear that, Warden?! He thinks yer a _man_!" Solona's eyes flicked to Oghren in annoyance just as Natia smacked him upside the head. "Ow! Natia, what the hell?!" He tried to hit her back, but she caught his fist and wrenched it behind his back.

"Let's just wait until this is over before we break into a fist fight, shall we?"

The man looked to the dwarves with confusion before focusing back on Solona and her sister. "Unhand that girl, vile creature, and submit to the holy will of Andraste!"

Solona rolled her eyes. "Seriously? It's like the Maker has a sense of humor…"

Alistair left Solona's side, approaching the young man. He moved to point his sword at the future king, but Alistair didn't even flinch, coming to stop with the weapon inches from his chest. "Stand down, Recruit!"

"No, I will n-" He didn't get a chance to reply further, as Alistair suddenly lashed out, knocking his sword from the boy's sloppy grip and planting him firmly on his backside.

Revka stepped forward, anger written plainly on her face. "Orson, _go home_! How did you even find me here?"

"A sister from the Chantry came to find me when she saw you with someone with the mark of an apostate," he answered, wise enough to stay on the ground with the blonde giant that was Alistair towering above him. "I couldn't stand the thought of you brought under the sway of one like him-"

" _Her_ ," Alistair corrected. "She is a lady. She is also Revka's sister, as well as the Commander of Ferelden's remaining Grey Wardens. She exists outside of Chantry law, and is under the protection of the Arl of Redcliffe. You need to learn a bit more about politics, son, before you go off declaring Holy War on someone who did no wrong."

Revka walked up to him, reaching out a hand to help him to his feet. "Go back to the Chantry, Orson. I'm perfectly safe here." Here eyes met Solona's as she added, "I'm with family."

He eyed her a moment. "You don't have a sister."

"Orson, we were promised to each other only a month ago! I have not shared every bit of my past with you. Now _go home_. I will tell you about it later." Pausing, she added, "And don't tell my parents I was here until I've had the chance to speak with them. As you might have gathered, my sister is a… sensitive subject."

Alistair stepped in as the boy opened his mouth to speak. "Why don't I escort you out? I'm a Grey Warden now, but I was a templar recruit myself before that. I'm eager to hear what happened to my old friends." He gripped the boy's shoulder, steering him out of the hall and toward the front entrance of the arl's estate before he could say a word.

"Right. I think I've had quite enough excitement for today," Eamon announced, startling Solona out of her shocked stupor. She'd forgotten he was still in the hall. "Warden-Commander, I will meet you and the others in one hour in my study."

"Of course, Your Grace," she answered, watching as he gave a satisfied nod and made for the inner halls of the estate.

"Perhaps you can tell me all that is going on now?" Revka suggested, a smirk on her face.

Leliana giggled. "Solona, my love, her face is just as expressive as yours! I swear I've seen that look before."

Solona sighed. "Yes, I get it. I can't keep my emotions to myself. Shall we go share my life story from the last six months, then? If you're done laughing, of course," she added with a raised eyebrow.

Still giggling, Leliana nodded, following as Solona asked a servant to lead her to her room.

* * *

Revka began counting off on her fingers. "So… you are the Commander of the Grey Wardens, while your sole other warden is in line for the throne. You are a powerful mage who is free of the Circle legally. You are here to unseat the man who killed our last king and the rest of your order. You have defeated werewolves, met the near-mythical Dalish elves, found the maker of the golems of Orzammar, and found the Sacred Ashes of Andraste. And on top of it you bring a beautiful Orlesian minstrel with you here as your… lover. Have I covered it all?"

Leliana blushed. Did this girl like women as her sister did? Is that how she knew without being told? Solona merely nodded. "Yes, I think that's about the size of it."

"Wow… I admit I am having a hard time believing it all."

Solona chuckled. "After having gone through all of it myself, I stil find it unbelievable. But it _is_ true. Come the spring thaw, we will have armies of all the peoples of Ferelden gathered on our door, with Alistair as our King."

"He is a _handsome_ man, isn't he?" Revka murmured with a spark in her eyes, puzzling Leliana further.

Solona snorted. "He has no hair!"

"That's true… how did that happen?"

Shaking her head, Solona said, "It's a long story. Suffice it to say, he was burned rather badly in our last… altercation. He and Zevran both."

Revka knit her brows in confusion. "Zevran?"

"One of our companions. You can meet them all later, if you like. But until then… tell us about the blowhard who came in here calling for me to submit to him," Solona suggested, causing Leliana to choke down a laugh. Solon kept making these sexual innuendos, and it was thoroughly testing Leliana's ability to keep a straight face.

Revka just sighed. "After you… left, Mother and Father decided I was of marriageable age and started petitioning like I was one of their wares in the market. Orson's parents live here in Denerim and knew our parents from Chantry services. They fell in love with each other's piety and promised us to each other."

Solona narrowed her eyes. "I take it you did not have a lot of choice in the matter. Do you like him?"

Another sigh. "He is a decent man, or will be in a few years. He is barely older than I, however, and not yet a full templar. We would not be able to be married until he can house me, until he has an income. I had hoped that by then I would come to like him, but so far…"

Leliana finished the thought for her. "So far there is not much to like?" Revka just nodded.

"Revka, what… _happened_ after that night?" Solona asked after adjusting her seat upon their bed. Leliana had a brief flash of tying the warden to the bedposts before shaking her head to clear it. What could possibly be her problem?! What about the events of the day made her so… _randy_? They'd just made love that morning!

"I was… bitter that they would have Derek and I and never mention their first child. They had utterly disowned any memory of you, Solona! So I started asking questions. When they would not answer me, I went to the Chantry sisters. They started painting a picture that I did not like. Perhaps, if someone did not have family taken away from them, then that picture might seem harmless, but to me, it was a picture of a sister I could have known – and who I liked tremendously based on the one day we had together – torn away from me, all memory of her buried by misguided piety."

Solona frowned. "What did they say?"

Revka straightened her skirt around her. "I didn't ask like I had a family member who was a mage – I was still afraid of the association. I apologize for that." Solona merely shook her head, murmuring her understanding. "I was told that children with magic were taken to the Circle to keep others, as well as themselves, safe. They were watched over by templars for their own good. Like children. Or perhaps dogs." Rolling her eyes, she continued. "Their families are encouraged to go on without those children, as if they had never existed, for they would not be able to visit them until they reached their majority within the Circle, and by that time they would not know them even if they visited. Families are encouraged to not tell future children of that first child's existence, Solona! You are… you were erased, with the Chantry's blessing. I could not stomach it. I refuse to believe that our beloved Andraste would encourage such things."

"She didn't," Solona replied, her face a mask of rage for a moment before it gave way to a resigned sadness. Leliana knew her lover had long ago accepted the unfairness of the situation with her parents, but being unhappy about it was to be expected. Sighing, Solona continued, "Look, Revka. They just did what they were told. The common person is… frightened of magic. It is the doing of the Chantry, but even those sisters who told you those things believed it was the right thing to do. It is no single person's fault. It is all a misinterpretation of the Chant of Light, and unfortunately this is what it has turned into."

"It is true," Leliana finally chimed in. "I spent a few years as a lay-sister in Lothering. The people are good people, if misguided. For the most part, magic never enters our lives except as those who are fugitives from the Circle, or the occasional abomination that the templars quickly find and put down. This means that the good souls like Wynne and Solona are never seen by the people who really _need_ to see that they can be so good, because they obey and _stay put_ inside the Circle, away from the common citizen. And those who _are_ seen live in disguise, never using their magic, living as ordinary farmers and workmen, as Solona's uncle did. If the only time you ever see magic is from someone willing the to live outside the law, then the only magic use you are ever exposed to is from criminals. It is a horrible feedback that simply reinforces your prejudices. Rarely do people get the opportunity you and I have had, Revka."

The girl knit her brows. "What opportunity is that?"

Leliana smiled, reaching over and taking Solona's hand. "To get a chance to know someone as good and lovely as your sister."

Solona's face flushed, a red hue coming in under her dark skin and purple tattoo. Leliana giggled, releasing her hand and getting up from the bed. "Come, we should go meet the arl. Revka, what will you do?"

"I… I'm not sure. I should go home and speak with my parents, but I don't think I'm yet ready for that."

"Well, I must be in this meeting with the others," Leliana said, "but what if Natia and Max explored the estate with you? Alistair's friend Ellia could show you around, perhaps?"

Solona smiled. "That is an excellent idea! It would give you some time to think, Revka. Max is a good companion, and Natia is a sweet girl. And I'm sure she would be happy to answer all the questions you have about dwarves and Orzammar."

Laughing, Revka agreed, and Leliana hurried into the hall to ask a passing servant for Ellia and Natia's presence.

* * *

Alistair stood alone outside Eamon's study, wearing tunic and trousers, having shed his armor in the room he was shown to earlier. The Theirin sword and dagger from Ostagar remained on his person, however – given the surprise greeting first from Loghain and then from that remplar recruit he'd just escorted outside, he wasn't taking any chances.

He hadn't used the new sword much, only while sparring in the evening for the last several days. It was somewhat heavier than the one he'd been issued as a warden, yet it was balanced incredibly well, and therefore easy enough to adapt to. The shield, too, was exceptionally made. He still wasn't sure about using them, but it seemed like the right thing to do. They felt… they just felt right in his hands. It was like they were made for him. He'd never seen his father, but if Cailan was anything to go by, then in a roundabout way they _were_ made for his hands. They were made for _Theirin_ hands.

Cailan… there was a conundrum. He didn't even know if the man had known who he _was_. But Alistair had known he was looking at his brother. The man's face looked like a mirror that was _wrong_ in some indefinable way. Maybe it was the long hair. Maybe it was his kingly bearing. Or maybe it was just that brothers never looked _exactly_ alike unless they were twins. Or maybe all three swirled together to form the differences between them. Whatever the cause, Cailan didn't seem to see it, or kept his knowledge of Alistair's parentage to himself.

He had spoken with Alistair at length while Duncan had been at the Circle, and over time, Alistair had come to like the man. He was enthusiastic, wanting to hear all the tales of the Grey Wardens that Alistair could share with him. However, because of spending so much time discussing warden tales with the man, Alistair couldn't shake the feeling that it was somehow _his_ fault that Cailan had such ideas of grandeur regarding the order; Alistair held them in rather high regard himself, after all. He knew it was stupid, but it was a guilt that was difficult to shake. In his own small way, perhaps if he had kept his distance instead of satisfying his curiosity regarding his brother, then maybe they would still have a king.

He knew, intellectually, that such a thing wasn't true, of course. Loghain's treachery killed Cailan, not Cailan's trust in the glorious Grey Wardens. Yet looking back, Loghain was right about one thing: Cailan did rely too heavily on the wardens. He thought them more than human, and they just weren't. Their only power was the taint, the ability to sense the 'spawn and, in some cases, hear their thoughts. While they trained to become formidable warriors, and did possess considerable stamina, they were all still human (or dwarven or elven, as the case may be). The possibly ironic thing was that Solona very nearly _was_ the invincible being Cailan envisioned them all to be, but Alistair would not be making the same mistake Cailan did. He would not treat Solona as if she were indestructible; he had only think of the arcane warrior she had killed, or how fragile she looked after her week trapped in the Fade, to remind himself that she was not.

At that moment, the very woman he was thinking about marched into the hallway from the stairwell, also without her armor but far from unarmed. Leliana followed Solona, the bard not having bothered to remove the leather armor she wore on the road. He didn't really blame her, as the light linen she wore underneath her light armor was hardly appropriate for a meeting with the arl. She had probably decided to just stay as she was until she could bathe.

"Everything went all right with your sister, I trust?" he asked.

Solona nodded, smiling brightly despite everything that had happened just in that afternoon. "Yes. She's with Natia and your friend Ellia now, being shown around the grounds. She wanted some time to think before going home."

"How do you think your parents will react?"

She pursed her lips. "I honestly don't know. I don't really know them…"

"Sorry," he said quickly, scrubbing a hand over the stubble atop his head before scratching at the back of his neck. "I didn't mean to bring up… bad memories."

Solona just shrugged. "No need for apology, Alistair. I know you didn't mean anything. I just… seeing her, thinking about them… it brings up a lot of conflict in my mind. I feel like I did visiting Ostagar, like I'm a completely different person."

"You _were_ , my love," Leliana murmured, threading her fingers into Solona's. Looking at Alistair, she continued. "You both were different when you met, and before it, too. The events we have been through … if they do not change a person, then that person is not capable of changing at all, I think."

Alistair smiled. "You have an excellent point." Pausing for a moment and thinking back, he finally added, "And I think I know exactly when the biggest turning point for me was."

"Oh?"

He smiled. "Well, part of it is being friends with you two. But… it was the fires leading to the Ashes where I think I really started to change."

Solona cocked her head to the side. "What about the fires changed you?"

He flushed a little. "I realized that I needed to be king. That the throne was… is… an incredibly useful tool. A Grey Warden and a bastard has no power behind his words; but a king? A king can convince Chantries that Andraste's actions were misinterpreted. A king can effect change in the lives of the mages of the Circle in his lands. A king can change the law so that the downtrodden are brought back up. I cannot change people's minds, but I can change the _law_ , and my words will at least require listening to. I want to… I want to make my country a better place. The best way I can do that is to accept my heritage and use the tools available to me, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me to think of being in charge of armies and nobles, and, well… _everyone_."

Solona smirked at the end. "Well, not in charge of _me_. The wardens are outside the jurisdiction of the Crown, after all."

He mock-glared at her. "I'm a warden, too, Solona. Besides, I've put you on your arse more than once. I could still do it, even as king."

"That sounds like a challenge, Alistair," she mocked, her lips spread in a grin.

"Really?" Leliana interjected, rolling her eyes. "You two want to wrestle in the corridors of the Arl of Redcliffe's estate? _You_ are the ones who are going to save us all from the Blight?"

Alistair put on his best sulk. "Do you really think so little of me, Leliana?"

Before she had a chance to answer, Eamon's study opened, a servant beckoning them inside. A moment later, Zevran and Wynne appeared, looking much fresher than the others. Alistair suspected they took the hour they'd had to themselves to quickly bathe and change, as Wynne was wearing an actual dress, and Zevran sported a tunic and trouser set that Alistair had never before seen on the man. _Why didn't_ _ **I**_ _do that?_

"Ah, good, you're all here." Eamon sat at his desk, Teagan and Fergus with him. Alistair didn't like that they'd been talking without the wardens or their companions there, but it could have had nothing to do with the Landsmeet, and either way, Alistair could do nothing about it _now_.

Gesturing them all to chairs that had been brought in, he continued, sitting back in his seat. "Unfortunately, Loghain's decree makes it difficult to conduct the reconnaissance we need."

"And what reconnaissance is that, Your Grace?" Solona asked.

"Information, mostly," he answered, heaving a sigh. "We need information on Loghain's dealings in Denerim these many months. We need to know his movements, who he has bribed, if he's been recruiting for the army. We need to know if there's a secret police, if he's had contact outside of the country. We need as much information as we can get our hands on, so we can lay his slimier dealings to bear at the Landsmeet. In addition, we need to get a feel for which nobles will support us and which will not, and perhaps see who can be swayed."

Teagan spoke up first. "I can spend some time at The Gnawed Noble. The other banns and arls should be trickling in over the next day or two – you called the Landsmeet for next week, right?" At Eamon's confirming nod, he continued. "I can talk with those I see. Many spend time at that tavern, and I can always make social calls to those that don't."

Eamon nodded. "That will help a great deal. But there is much information to be had that a bann cannot find. I need ears among the people."

Zevran was the one to speak next. "I can help there, Your Grace. People in cities pay little heed to yet another elf. They think us not powerful enough to repeat their words, or even to understand the full meaning of them. I can exploit this, uncover what has been happening in the city. And I will not look out of place in some of the seedier places a bann cannot go."

Eamon inclined his head. "I thank you for that… Zevran, is it? That will be a great help. Unfortunately, our two wardens _cannot_ leave the estate, nor can you, Lady Leliana, or you, Fergus. Loghain's guards will have descriptions of you."

Leliana cleared her throat, and Eamon looked her way expectantly. "I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but I believe the only one who truly cannot leave this estate is Solona. She is the only one who cannot blend in to the crowd, as it were. Alistair, Teryn Cousland, and myself all have the light skin of this land. My hair can be covered easily enough, and then I am just another small woman no one will pay attention to on the street. If we go in commoner's clothing and stick to crowded areas, we should have no problem listening among the market goers, at the very least."

Eamon looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking. "Very well. If you are confident you can keep yourselves from being recognized, then I'll allow it. But refrain from visiting areas where people might recognize you, yes?"

Alistair knew the last comment was meant for him. "Don't worry, Eamon, I'll avoid the Chantry, and any templars I see."

Smiling, Eamon nodded. "And I agree with your Lady, Solona. Unfortunately, your visage is far too recognizable for you to leave here until we go to the palace for the Landsmeet."

Solona didn't look happy, but she nodded nonetheless. "I understand, Your Grace. But I would like to be notified whenever more information is found." She paused, shaking her head and chuckling some. "I am not exactly the Paragon of Patience."

"I can understand _that_ feeling quite well," Eamon said, his expression turning sympathetic. It then hardened, however, as he looked up at Fergus. "You, too, Fergus. You are too emotional, too prone to an outburst. You must stay here unless absolutely necessary."

"But I-" the rightful Teryn of Highever began, only to be cut off.

"No. You are not in the right place right now to be wandering the market listening for information. You were raised as a noble, and will stick out like a sore thumb. And given your outburst earlier, I simply cannot trust that you can control yourself. It is for your safety, Alistair's safety, and the safety of your Terynship and your people. We cannot lose you before we have the chance to restore you to your people, Fergus."

Fergus's jaw clamped shut, and he nodded. Alistair could recognize the shame in his expression. The man was not happy being held back like a child.

Eamon slapped the desk lightly with an open palm. "It is decided. We have some daylight left. Go do what you do best, and let us see what we can find."

* * *

Solona exited the room with a slight frown still upon her face. Realistically, she knew she could do nothing outside these walls while she was still a fugitive. But it did not sit well with her. She had been constantly moving, constantly learning, constantly fighting since becoming a warden so many months earlier. To be suddenly idle, to not be involved in anything that was needed until the Landsmeet, left her feeling quite useless.

"It is a good opportunity for you to practice your meditations," Leliana suggested, walking beside her as they made their way to their room.

"Yes, because I love meditating so much," Solona replied sarcastically.

"I know, my love. But if you want to master the techniques before the Blight swarms the lands once more, then you must practice. I know I can't possibly understand what it's like to do, how disorienting it must be, but you must master it nonetheless."

Solona sighed. "I know. I just… don't want to. But I will. Maker knows I have enough practice in spending my time studying. And to practice meditating _without_ using magic will at least be different."

Leliana was quiet for a moment as they walked. Finally, Solona felt the small woman's fingers thread through her own, and the bard tentatively said, "You can also spend the time getting to know your sister, Solona."

Solona just tightened her hand in Leliana's and kept walking, not saying anything for now. She didn't really know what she felt, truth be told. She was very happy to see her sister, of course. She was even happier that her sister did not think her some demon, some reckless beast who must be locked away for the safety of the common people. But she never thought she'd see her siblings again, and she had made peace with that. But then the second she saw her sister, she had run after her, made herself known. Perhaps she hadn't made peace with it like she thought she had.

It didn't help that seeing her sister necessarily brought up memories of the last time she saw her parents. They had been… hesitant, but welcomed her in, fed her, introduced her to her brother and sister, Derek and Revka. They hadn't offered much in explanation to the two younger Amell children, merely saying that Solona had been taken to the Circle because she had magic, and they had moved on with their lives. They had not been overly warm toward Solona, but neither were they hostile. She had gone to the market with her siblings, delighting in them, answering the questions they had. They had come home and gone to bed, Solona sleeping on a pallet in the kitchen. She had awoken to the templars, and had seen her parents watching from the door of the house, hard expressions on their faces as they watched her hauled away like some animal.

And that was the last time she had seen them. Leliana knew all of this, of course. She didn't ask now how Solona felt, seeing her sister. She knew it brought these memories to mind for the mage. They had spoken very briefly of it while walking to Eamon's study, but that was it – the rest of it had been learned over many discussions between them over the last several months. There really just wasn't much to say of this new development as of yet, for Solona did not know how she felt, or what she wanted from this rekindling of familial relationships.

They got to their room without speaking further. Leliana called for a servant to draw a bath, as they lacked the technology of the dwarves to run water themselves, and while Solona _could_ fill the tub and then heat the water herself, they were under a strict "no magic" order until she was no longer a fugitive. Templars knocking down the doors of the estate for the location of apostates was the last thing they needed. Templars did not stop to see if a mage was out of the Circle legally or not. It was assumed you were guilty until proven otherwise. The mark of an apostate upon Solona's face would not help matters.

Removing her dirty travel clothes and helping Leliana out of her armor, the two women slid into the oversized bath together. Solona immediately pulled the smaller woman close to her, suddenly needing the closeness of her skin, the feeling of her lips and her arms and her loving caress. Kissing her deeply, she started the slow dance of lovemaking, sliding her hands everywhere she could reach as she drew pleasured sighs and declarations of love from her lover.

Later, as Leliana dressed for her infiltration of the market crowd, Solona lay in the haze of a half-doze, feeling loved and appreciated despite the absence of her lover's body next to hers. It was exactly what she had needed after the confusing twist of emotions she'd experienced with the return of her sister. With a lighter heart and the satisfaction of having confirmed her life and her love, she dressed and went to find her sister, to speak with her at length of their parents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to include Solona's family because, well... I built this backstory of them living in Denerim. I can't just not have them involved at all. I like realism, and I just don't think it would be very realistic to have her completely avoid them. I don't think we're done with Orson, either.
> 
> Fun story time. Raven Sinead asked me when I wrote this, "You wrote the last section while drunk, didn't you?" And she was totally right! I asked her how could she tell, because I was very afraid that meant it read somewhat like a funhouse mirror. But no, she said it was perfectly cogent, just full of grammar and punctuation errors. I can handle that. But I thought y'all might appreciate that little anecdote.


	53. A Proposal

Solona watched as her sister left the estate, heading off into the twilight of the market. They had spoken for hours, of everything and nothing, merely getting to know each other. It turned out Revka was an accomplished seamstress, having won several local competitions, and even having done some work on special robes for the sisters of the Denerim Chantry. She also liked music, and was very interested to hear Leliana play and sing. When she had asked what Solona enjoyed, Solona had been hard-pressed to answer. She liked sex and sparring, to be perfectly honest. She also liked venturing into the Fade more and more, now that her control was becoming so strong. She had yet to truly straddle the Veil, but venturing into and out of the Fade was done more easily every time, and the last time she had done so, the night before while still on the road, she could feel her body out in the waking world. She was very close to finding the secret to staying awake and alert, both in the Fade and out, to truly existing and drawing power from both worlds. As much as she hated sitting still and centering herself enough to do it, it was fascinating once she was there.

She didn't say all of that, however. She made up some excuse about not having time for leisure activities and changed the focus of the conversation back to Revka. It was certainly _true_ , unless lovemaking counted as leisure. If that were the case, then there was very little that could happen in the world to _keep_ her from engaging in at least _that_.

When she could at last no longer see her sister in the distance, Solona turned to go back inside the estate, whistling for Max as she went. The dog was under strict orders not to leave the grounds, as well, as the mabari was not a common breed. Certainly, no stray mabari existed in the streets, leaving him unable to wander the city on his own, either. This left him to take care of his business in one spot along the wall separating the grounds of the estate from the market. He was not pleased – his three joys in life were eating, sleeping, and marking vertical objects, with a possible fourth being impregnating the arl's hunting dogs – but he did as he was told regardless. At her whistle, he bounded toward her, obviously feeling playful.

"Max!" she shrieked, taken unawares as he hit her hard on the rump with his head. The mage went down, just managing to avoid cracking her jaw on the stone floor. She laughed as she rolled onto her back and his big head filled her vision. Within seconds she and the dog were in an all-out wrestling match in the entrance hall to the Arl of Redcliffe's estate. Not something she ever imagined she would be doing, but it was fun, and it reminded her that she was not the only one feeling useless being so idle. Mabari required much exercise and other stimulation, being as smart as they were.

A few minutes later, things calmed down, the dog rolling over onto his back for a belly rub as they both panted. Grinning, she leaned over him, careful to avoid his lower half as she scratched.

"I always loved watching my sister play with her mabari."

Solona looked up, seeing Fergus Cousland leaning against the doorway leading to the hallway that led to the kitchen. "Your sister had a mabari?"

He smiled, nodding. The smile was… tight. She supposed she couldn't blame him. While the girl's body had not been found when he returned home with less than half the men he had left with for Ostagar, she was still assumed dead. "Yes. Our father got her for my sister when she was a pup herself, only 11 summers under her belt. But she wanted one, and our father could never say no to her. So he did his research, found the best breeder nearby that he could, and somehow managed to finagle a puppy out of them."

Stroking Max's head, Solona regarded the Cousland heir. "They're good dogs. I know I trust my life to Max, and everyone else's, as well. He's incredibly smart, and sweet and kind." Smiling, she ruffed his face with both hands. "And he's sweet on Leliana, which always helps."

Fergus pushed himself off from the wall, coming to stand next to her before kneeling on his haunches to pet the dog. Max allowed it, as he knew Fergus was one of them, but he was incredibly standoffish, looking away. Fergus laughed, dropping his hands. "Yes, that's about how it works. I'm not part of your pack, am I, boy?" Max gave a small chuff of agreement. "That's all right. I appreciate you letting me stroke your fur nonetheless."

Standing, Fergus offered Solona a hand, which she took, being propelled to her feet. She was of a height with Fergus, probably a half-inch taller than he was, even. They were probably evenly matched in strength, given that he definitely had an advantage in muscle-mass. Getting an idea, she grinned, cocking her head to the side.

"Teyrn-"

He cut her off. "Call me by my title, and I'll call you by yours, _Warden-Commander_. Every time."

She snorted. "Fair enough. _Fergus_. Fancy a sparring session? I'm sure you're feeling just as useless and restless as I am, having to stay cooped up here."

His face split into a wide grin. "Sparring with the Warden-Commander of Ferelden? I would be a fool to turn you down!"

Laughing, she clapped him on the back before having him lead the way.

An hour later, they were sweaty and tired. Fergus was shirtless in the stuffy, windowless room, while Solona had stripped down to her breast-band and trousers. She had asked him if he minded, but it was so hot and close in that room, she almost didn't care if he did. The thing was secure enough to hold her breasts in place while wrestling and sparring out on the road – she didn't think it would suddenly fail now. Luckily, she was right.

However, it almost caused a scandal when a servant, Alistair's friend Ellia, ran in to fetch them.

"Warden-Commander, the arl-"

That was as far as the poor girl got, freezing in place and gaping like a fish.

"Yes?" Solona asked, slightly amused.

The girl recovered admirably, averting her eyes and stammering ahead. "I apologize, I did not mean to intrude…"

Solona grinned. "It's all right, Ellia. We were just sparring, and it got incredibly hot in here. I didn't mean to horrify you. Nothing untoward happening here."

"Aside from your lack of attire, you mean," Fergus teased.

She scowled in his direction. "So men can be shirtless to avoid the heat, but a fighting woman cannot do the same?"

He grinned. "I think you should take whatever advantage you can. Though I don't think the darkspawn would be nearly as distracted as your comrades by your nudity."

"If _this_ is as naked as you think I can effectively fight, we should exchange some stories," she said with a snort.

"I'd love to hear them, over an ale. But perhaps we should let the poor, scandalized servant tell us why she came running in here looking for you first?"

Solona's face flushed a little. "Right… Ellia, what was it you needed?"

The elf just looked slightly amused, now that she knew she hadn't walked in on some strange lead up to lovemaking. "Yes, Warden-Commander. Arl Eamon needs your presence at once. Yours, as well, Teyrn Cousland."

"What about?" Solona asked, pulling her shirt over her head before re-securing Duncan's sword to her back and his dagger to her hip. She needed to get accustomed to them, and she couldn't channel magic right now anyway, so she had left her enchanted sword in her room.

Ellia shook her head. "I do not know, ser. He would not tell a servant that, I think."

"Fair point. Sorry. I'm not used to all this… rank."

Fergus clapped her on the shoulder before replacing his own shirt, tucking it in to his trousers somewhat haphazardly. "Get used to it, Solona. You are among the nobility now, not on the road with your troops."

"Well, perhaps you can give me some advice on that after we see what all this is about, since you're such an expert at it, _Fergus_."

Laughing, they followed Ellia to Eamon's study.

Only a small smile persisted upon her face when they finally crossed the threshold to the room. Sitting with Isolde and Eamon was a dark-haired elven woman, the tips of her ears standing out from the simple ponytail she wore. Her skin was very pale, the maroon and purples of her dress stunning against it. She turned her head as Solona and Fergus entered the room, her brows furrowed in a look of concern. Solona could not help noting how beautiful the small woman was, as different as she looked from the mage's own lover.

"Ah, Warden! Here you are again!" Eamon stood, crossing to her and Fergus. "This is-"

The elf shot up from her seat, cutting the arl off as she looked pleadingly into Solona's eyes. "I am Erlina, Queen Anora's handmaiden. Please, you must help me!" She had a strong Orlesian accent.

"… Or perhaps the young lady prefers to speak for herself," Eamon finished, a slight look of annoyance on his face.

"Please, Warden! My Lady is in trouble at Arl Howe's estate! I-"

"Slow down, please!" Solona interjected, taking light hold of the woman's arms to ground her. "What happened? What do you need my help with?"

The woman stared up at Solona for a moment before taking a deep breath and starting again. "The queen is in a difficult position. She loved her husband dearly, and when her father returned with no king and dark rumors, she was very concerned. But when she tries to speak with her father, he does not answer. He tells her 'not to trouble' herself. So she goes to Howe. A visit from the queen to the new Arl of Denerim is only a matter of courtesy, after all. At the meeting, she demands answers!"

Solona frowned, releasing the small woman and crossing her arms over her chest. She towered over the servant. "That didn't go well, I imagine."

She shook her head adamantly. "He calls her every sort of name, 'traitor' being the kindest, and locks her in a guest room! I was then called 'knife ear' and thrown out!"

Solona frowned. "I see… Why would he do that? How could he get away with it? Would Loghain let him do this?"

The woman hesitated before answering. "I think her life is in danger, Warden. I heard Howe say she would be a greater ally dead than alive. Especially if her death could be blamed upon Arl Eamon."

Solona raised a brow. "It is seriously working in our favor that people forget elves have such sharp hearing. And the intelligence to remember what they hear." She heard a faint snort from behind her, where Fergus remained. "But… Erlina, was it? Would Loghain kill his own daughter? Just to frame Arl Eamon?"

Eamon himself answered. "We may have no choice but to trust Anora. The queen is well-loved. If Loghain risked everything to pin her death on _me_? I'm not sure that's a risk we can afford to take."

"So you want me to, what… sneak in and break her out? What happened to the 'no leaving the estate' rule?"

Eamon raised a brow. " _You_ will not do anything. Your fellow warden and your companions, however, will infiltrate the Arl of Denerim's estate in the uniform of the city guard. Loghain has been lending the city guard to Howe, and I happen to have a selection of their armor in my armory."

"So why are you asking for my help, then?"

"They are under _your_ command, Warden-Commander. _You_ must ask them to do this."

"They are under _no one's_ command, Your Grace." Solona frowned as she continued. "They follow myself and Alistair of their own free will. The only person I command is Alistair, and then only nominally."

"Well, then see who would be willing to infiltrate in the guise of heavy armor. This is too important an opportunity. If the queen is at all sympathetic to our cause, it will strike a _huge_ blow to Loghain.'s cause. Not to mention that if she _does_ end up killed, it will be pinned upon _me_ , which would be crippling to _our_ cause."

Solona finally uncrossed her arms, sighing loudly. "All right. I will speak with them when everyone has returned."

"Erlina, is there anything else you can share with us?" the arl asked.

The elf hesitated again, looking up into Solona's eyes before answering. "I will show you to the servants' entrance once you are ready."

Nodding, Eamon gestured for Ellia, who had remained by the door. "Please get her something to eat and a place among the servants' quarters to rest until she is needed."

"Yes, Your Grace," the redheaded elf said with a curtsey, taking Erlina's hand and leading her from the room, a kind look upon her face.

"I will await the others in my rooms, Your Grace," Solona said before stalking off, Fergus only a step behind her.

"Warden, I wish to come," he said as soon as they were away from Eamon's door.

Stopping and turning, she frowned at him. "You have to stay here because you might lose your temper in the street. Why would it be wise to put you in Howe's very _house_?"

His gaze was hard, brooking no argument. "That bastard killed my parents and my sister. He killed my wife and child, but not before making them _suffer_. He slaughtered my people, Solona. All the people I had ever known since I was a boy, he had his men mangle and twist and murder. I will be part of this venture, and you will not tell Eamon of it."

Solona searched his eyes for a moment before nodding. "Fine. You can go. But do us all a favor and don't skewer the bastard until you can be assured a safe exit for all."

He smiled faintly, nodding. "I know I can manage that. Thank you, Solona. You are a true friend to Highever."

"I'm a friend to no city. But I think _you and I_ can be good friends. And I know that if someone did to Leliana or my sister what Howe did your family, I wouldn't stop until I had reduced him to ash. I think you are capable of the control necessary to keep from getting anyone else hurt as you seek your vengeance."

"I can," he affirmed, following at her heel until they passed his room. He said his goodbyes and disappeared within, no doubt to ready himself for his coming confrontation with his family's murderer.

* * *

Alistair finished his meat pie from the street vendor with little enthusiasm. He was dressed in homespun tunic and trousers, with cheap boots and no weapons on his person. He also wore a plain cap to help hide his lack of hair, and to keep him warm in the chill air. All in all, he looked like a particularly hale laborer of some kind. He had wandered the markets, finally choosing a food vendor that was particularly crowded. He couldn't understand why, however, as the meat pie he had purchased was barely edible.

"I'm too spoiled by Wynne's cooking," he muttered to himself, eyeing the last bite warily before just swallowing it down. Washing the bland taste away with the mug of ale he had bought alongside the pie, he thought longingly of Wynne's spiced stews chock full of meat and vegetables, Leliana's perfectly seasoned venison steaks grilled over an open flame, or even the way Zevran managed to melt hard cheese on toast out in the woods. Shaking his head, he thought to himself, _Who knew I'd come to prefer the food I eat on the road?_

Unfortunately, he had overheard nothing useful all afternoon. As far as he could tell, the common people knew there was a Landsmeet, were aware of an elven uprising – and were very rude about it – and knew that the Arl of Redcliffe was now in town. Not much useful there, though perhaps they should at least investigate this things with the elves?. They'd been locked away from the rest of the city for months. How were they working? Eating? Were elven servants at the palace and various estates allowed in and out of the Alienage? It warranted investigation, if nothing else.

Leaving his dirtied mug and the wooden board on which his meal had come to be cleaned up by the food vendor, Alistair made his way to the agreed-upon place he would be meeting Zevran and Leliana. He still had roughly a half-hour until they agreed to meet, but already he could see Zevran, similarly dressed, cap and all, awaiting him. Leliana, however, seemed to be using every ounce of time she had.

Just as he neared Zevran, however, the man slipped away into a very narrow alleyway nearby. Frowning, Alistair followed. Why would he disappear just as Alistair got close? A hand snaked out of the gloom and grabbed his shirt as soon as he was within reacvh, and with a small cry of surprise, he was pulled in to the alleyway.

"Sorry, Alistair, but you completely lack subtlety." It was Leliana's voice.

Dusting himself off, Alistair peered into the gloom, seeing the plainly clothed figure of the bard and the assassin smirking back at him. "It's all right. I suppose the sight of a human towering over a woman and an elf aren't exactly common sights."

Zevran grinned. "Ah, but he can learn! You are at least as smart as a mabari, Alistair. Congratulations."

"Ha ha, very funny. Did either of you find anything?"

"Yes," Leliana answered, smiling right alongside Zevran, "though we should discuss it at the estate. Shall we head there now?"

He nodded. "Yes. I… might have forgotten where the servants' entrance is."

"Never mind, I take it back. Max is smarter than you are, my tall friend."

Alistair punched Zevran on the arm. "Why am I always the butt of the jokes about people being stupid?"

"Because you are so sweet that you take it, Alistair," Leliana said, her hand stealing to his face for a moment before she passed in front of him. "Now, follow me, and take this," she said, hauling something heavy into his arms. A bundle of who knew what, it served as their disguise – servants to the arl. Each of them carried something back from market, and Leliana led the way back into the market crowd, guiding leading them through the throng toward Eamon's estate.

Once on the grounds, they dumped their bundles. Looking inside, Alistairhe found he'd merely been carrying around wood wrapped in canvas. Leaving it where directed, he followed his two companions in through the servants' entrance at the side of the large stone household. Ten minutes later had him in his room, where he could change into his more comfortable – and expensive, hence why he couldn't wear them in the market – boots. Everything else he wore would serve for the time being.

He was only in his room for a moment before there was a knock on his door. He opened it to find Ellia, a smirk on her face. "You look very much like how I imagine you'd look if you'd remained a servant," she said, looking him up and down. There was a slight gleam in her eye he couldn't ignore.

"Well, it's certainly more comfortable than my armor," he quipped, grinning down at her. "Any particular reason you're knocking on my door? Or did you just want to visit?" He tried to make the question a little suggestive, given the look she was giving him. Morrigan was clearly a lost cause as far as further romantic entanglement, and he _liked_ Ellia. And unlike Morrigan, she liked _him_. Perhaps it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to further explore their bond?

Her expression turned serious, banishing all thoughts of her nakedness away from his mind. "Something happened while you were gone, Alistair. You need to go speak with your fellow warden. Your friend Zevran is already headed to her room; someone already informed him and his lady."

"What is it?" he asked, though he headed out the door straight away.

"You should speak with Solona. It is not my place."

Frowning in frustration, Alistair hurried the rest of the way down the hall to Solona's room; his and hers were on opposite ends. Leaving Ellia to go back to her duties with a nod of thanks, he knocked on the door. It opened almost immediately, and he entered to find everyone but Morrigan present.

"Alistair, good. Come in, we have much to discuss," Solona said, and for the next quarter-hour she outlined how Anora's handmaiden had sought them out to save her mistress.

"So we're actually doing this? We're saving the queen from Howe and her own father?" Alistair was incredulous. Of course it was a trap… right?

"It's what Eamon wants us to do, Alistair," Solona responded, shrugging her shoulders. "And unfortunately I have to ask for volunteers, as I myself cannot go. Two or three people, no more than four, should go dressed in the armor of the Denerim City Guard."

"And they should be human," Zevran murmured. "Elves and dwarves do not join the guard." His eyes sliding over to Sten in the corner, he added, "Nor do qunari warriors, though they might want to start recruiting, given how formidable Sten is."

"That is a fair point, Zevran. I suppose I didn't need all of you here, but not including all of you in these kind of decisions doesn't feel right." Solona sighed. "Very well. Fergus Cousland is going, and I need another volunteer or two to go with him."

"Wait," Alistair said, not letting them go any further. "I thought he can't leave here?"

Solona regarded him a moment. "He asked. He wants the chance to take his revenge on Howe, and to sabotage Loghain's plans, whatever they are. He will be able to control himself, as long as he is allowed to take vengeance when the right opportunity presents itself. I… won't be telling Eamon."

Alistair held her gaze for a moment before nodding. "All right. I believe you're right, and I'd like to help him find his peace. I'll go, too. We'll both be mostly hidden behind helms, right? We look like guards – big, muscular… dumb." Zevran chuckled.

"I will go, as well," Leliana said, startling both wardens.

"You?" Alistair asked, smiling a little. Perhaps she was joking? "But you're so… _small_. You don't look like a guard."

"Actually," Solona interjected, "two of the guards at the gate to the city this morning were women, and not much bigger than Leliana. Eamon said he has armor in a variety of sizes." Addressing Leliana, she said, "I think you should go, if you can find the right fit."

Alistair counted on his fingers. "So me, Leliana, and Fergus… Three of the people who can't leave the estate. Solona? Is this wise?"

Solona shrugged again. "It's what Eamon wants, and he is the mastermind behind the Landsmeet. I'm just doing as he asked."

Nodding, Alistair looked around, then frowned. "Wait… where is Morrigan?"

"She… could not be found," Leliana supplied, her eyes and lips tightening almost imperceptibly. "I suspect she fled the city for a while, as she was unable to do so while traveling here with Eamon's soldiers. She can use magic and transform once she leaves the city."

Alistair nodded. "I suppose that makes sense. Well, I guess it's just you and me, Leliana. When should we do this?"

"Tonight," came the reply, and they all turned to see Fergus had just come through the door. Closing it behind him, he continued. "If the queen really is in danger, then we need to get to her as soon as possible. But I imagine going at night would be better for our disguise, both because it's dark, and because lazy guards are more willing to not double check things like our faces in the night's gloom."

Leliana smiled. "Yes, that is correct. And if this is a trap, then hitting as soon as possible will give us as much advantage as we can get, as they may not expect us yet. But you will both follow my lead – I am accustomed to shadows and its tricks. You are not."

Fergus looked taken aback for just a moment before smirking and looking up at Alistair. "Well," he said, before looking back down at Leliana, "you certainly speak your mind, don't you?"

Leliana crossed her arms over her chest. "My interest is to keep us all alive, _My Lord_."

Fergus laughed. "And I appreciate it, My Lady! I also insist on informality, at least for now. Think of me merely as another of your travel companions."

"It's going to be difficult to start calling you by your title when this is all over," Solona remarked with a smirk, before sobering. "But I trust you'll keep my friends safe? I'm trusting my family to you, Fergus."

Before he could answer with more than a nod, Oghren pushed past them all. "Well, if you ladies are done here, I have to go visit that place Zevran told me about down by the water. Catch you all later!"

Fergus stared after the dwarf. "Did he mean…?"

"The Pearl, yes," Alistair answered, clapping Fergus on the back. "He's not the most subtle of creatures."

"And that's saying something, indeed, coming from _you_ , Warden," Zevran quipped, earning himself a laugh from the others.

"And there's the jokes again. I'm always the butt of your jokes, Zevran."

"It is only because you lie down and take them so well, Alistair."

"Yes, well, we'll see if you still manage to do so when I'm king, shall we?"

"I relish the challenge."

Shaking his head and smiling, he led Solona, Fergus, and Leliana to the armory to pick out their disguises.

* * *

Solona sat in the entrance hall, Max at her feet. Fergus, Leliana, and Alistair had been gone now for three hours, and she was starting to feel nervous. If everything had gone well, then they really should have been back by now – Howe's estate was not that far away. This infernal waiting was wearing on her, and it had not even been a whole day. Was she going to be able to stand it for the next week and a half until the Landsmeet?

Solona did not miss that Ellia waited nearby. Ostensibly it was because she had been assigned to Solona's party, to get them anything they might need. But Solona knew it was because she feared for Alistair. The girl had been there as she and Eamon discussed Erlina's news and what they would be doing about it. She would know by now that Alistair had volunteered, and likely would be worried. Solona wondered briefly if their one-time affair would turn into more? It seemed Alistair had given up altogether on Morrigan, and Solona really couldn't blame him, given what a harpy she'd decided to become toward him. Ellia was pretty, and they'd been friends for a very long time. And given he was about to be king, she was likely the only woman he knew for certain was interested in him for _him_ and not his position, or potential position, as the case may be.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a flurry of activity outside. She started for the giant doors just as they opened, permitting several figures inside. A tall man in the uniform of the City Guard carried someone in his arms. Behind him stood a shorter, but still quite tall, feminine figure, dressed in the common clothing of a servant. The others were soldiers of Eamon's that Solona recognized.

As she got closer, she recognized the guard's form as Fergus. "Fergus!" she shouted, running the last few feet. Ellia came right up behind her, rushing to Fergus and helping him with the woman in his arms. Solona barely paid any attention.

"Did you get the queen? Where is Alistair? Leliana?"

By now several other people had trickled into the hall, though again Solona barely took notice. All she could see was Fergus refusing to meet her eyes. Instead, he crouched as he surrendered his burden to Ellia, other servants now rushing to help her. "Please, she is incredibly dear to me. And hurt very badly."

"Fergus," Solona tried again, trying to quell the fluttering of panic within her heart, her stomach.

Again, he refused to look her in the eye, looking to the form on the ground instead. Solona glanced at her, doing a double-take as she finally saw that he had brought in a very badly-injured woman. Her eyes were open and alert, but her body was all but broken, angry wounds showing underneath a cloak that refused to cover her completely. She wore only a sleeveless shift, and her hair, long and brown and probably luscious when combed out and clean, was wild about her head. But her eyes were what stole Solona's attention.

They were an exact match of Fergus's clear, brown eyes. It was almost like looking into his intense gaze.

Looking back up, she caught him finally looking at her. Her heart simultaneously seemed to stop and to beat faster than should be possible as she took in his words. "Solona. They… Alistair and Leliana are at Fort Drakon, in Loghain's custody. They gave themselves up so that I could get the queen and my sister back here safely."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand now I finally get to reveal the beginning of another major change I'm making! Fergus Cousland's sister! How'd he find her? Where was she all this time? Why the fuck am I including her at all? All this and more I will answer in the next several chapters.
> 
> Sorry for the cliffhanger, and sorry for not yet letting you know how the journey through Howe's estate went. You'll know soon, I promise.
> 
> Lastly (this is from my nearly a year and a half after final publication of the last chapter), looking back on this chapter, I honestly have no idea why I titled it this, but Imma go ahead and leave it. *Shrug* Who knows?


	54. The Prisoner

Solona's shriek of rage was enough to wake the dead.

Wynne watched as the warden lashed out with a fist, punching Fergus Cousland right in his jaw. He hit the ground hard as Solona bore down on him, screaming her accusations. "I trusted you! You said you would keep them _safe_! They are my _family_ , Fergus! _How could you?!_ "

Wynne was paralyzed by the scene before her.

Zevran was the one to intervene. "Warden, you must calm down!"

Her fist lashed out at him next, but he was prepared, having fought alongside the woman for nearly half a year. He caught her wrist and used her momentum, swinging her around and wrenching her arm hard behind her back, where it could no longer cause him any harm. She struggled violently for a moment, but the elf's grip was ironclad.

"Let me go, Zevran." Her voice was like molten steel, sending a shiver down Wynne's spine to hear it.

He just shook his head. He knew her well enough not to be cowed, even when her tone promised murder. "Not until you stop trying to hit people."

"That bastard said he'd keep them safe! Instead he allowed them to be taken!"

"And hitting him, while I'm sure it makes you feel better, does not get them back."

She seemed to sag under the weight and truth of his words. Tentatively, he let her go, and when she made no further move to turn on him or Fergus, he backed away, holding out a hand to bring Fergus to his feet. Then, he beckoned for Wynne. "Come, my love. I know you cannot work your magic on her, but she is very hurt, and your talents are tremendous even without the help of magic."

Wynne smiled briefly at her lover's praise, but the smile left her with her paralysis. She moved close, she finally taking a close look at the girl Fergus had brought in. There were two servants surrounding her, one of them having already rushed off for supplies. Snagging another's sleeve, she asked, "Is there an infirmary? Or perhaps a room we could convert?" The girl nodded. "Good. Fergus, get that girl up and follow the young woman to the infirmary. I will gather my supplies and meet you there."

Fergus nodded, gathering the girl – his sister, if Wynne had understood correctly – up into his arms and following one of the elven servants. The other stayed with Wynne, to take her to her patient once she had her things. As she left the room, she heard Zevran begin to placate Solona.

* * *

"Solona, we will get them back."

To her credit, Solona did not weep. But she looked utterly helpless, and Zevran decided right away that it was not a good look for the woman.

" _I_ will get them back, Solona." This got her attention. She looked to him, her expression losing some of its helplessness. Studying him a moment, she nodded.

"All right. What can I do to help?"

Zevran smiled. "There's the fiery mage I know so well! You will help Wynne with that girl, and you will let me do what I do best. I will need clothes of black, and Natia's help."

Solona's surprise amused him. "Natia?"

"Aye, Natia. She was a thief, in a place of stone. That is precisely what I need in that fort."

"But she is a dwarf. How will you disguise her?"

Zevran smirked. "You think far too literally, my large friend. I have no intention of either of us being seen for what we are. We will get your lady-love back. And we will do it with Fergus's help. I believe he owes it to you."

Frowning, Solona nodded, turning away from him and heading in the direction Fergus had taken the girl. Zevran followed, needing to speak with Fergus before he sought out Natia.

They entered what looked like an empty room set aside for visiting servants. There were four pallets lined against the walls, with a washbasin in one corner and a chamber pot and privacy screen in another. The injured girl lay on one of the pallets, hastily covered in a sheet first, and her wounds were being laid bare. Solona rushed to the girl's side and began directing the servants to bring her fresh warm water and to begin boiling linens. She reached for the girl's shift, and just as it was being pulled up so Solona could assess her wounds, the tall blonde handmaiden stepped in front of Zevran, halting his progress.

"Out," she demanded.

"I'm sorry?" He formed it as a question, but it was really his way of telling her to kindly eat her own shoes. Who was this woman?

"Why you impertinent-"

Fergus cut her off, his hand on her shoulder. "Anora, it's fine. You need to strip her clothing, and we should both go. Right, Zevran?"

So this was the queen. "I suppose… You Fereldans and your modesty are strange to me. It is not as if I am in here for a peep show. I need to speak with Fergus, and I will leave if he does, as well."

"You call him by his name? How dare you! You should be imprisoned; executed on the spot!"

Fergus took her arm. "Anora, he is not a servant. He is a companion to the Wardens. That aside, is _now_ when you want to die on the molehill of elven insubordination? Come Zevran," he said, releasing the queen and walking past Zevran. The elven assassin turned on his heel and followed the Cousland heir out into the hallway.

"What happened, Fergus?" Zevran asked without preamble.

Fergus put his head in his hands. "They insisted! We were surrounded; that Cauthrien _bitch_ had us cornered like a mabari corners its prey. I couldn't fight, not with Elissa in my arms. We'd found an Orlesian Grey Warden who couldn't really fight, either. Leliana and Alistair surrendered themselves so we could all get away. I was helpless to do anything but allow Anora to steer me out! Cauthrien didn't seem to know who we were. She was too eager to have Alistair and Leliana to hand over to Loghain."

Zevran's expression hardened. "You lost us the future king, as well as another warden who could help fight this Blight. I am not interested in your excuses right now. I want to know what happened tonight. Tell me the whole thing. Then we will work on making it right."

Fergus looked into his eyes a moment. Then, taking a deep breath, letting it out in a long, weary sigh, he began to speak.

* * *

Fergus's heart was hammering in his chest. He might actually get to gut the bastard who viciously murdered his entire family! He just had to keep it together until the right opportunity presented itself. He would not let Solona down, not after she trusted him to come here on this venture.

They had made it into the servants' entrance with barely a hitch, Erlina - the handmaiden - distracting some guards for them before joining them herself. She was relatively certain that while she _had_ been thrown out, once inside, no one would recognize her except for the other elves, who would say nothing. They followed her up to Anora's room without incident, where they encountered their first true problem: a magical barrier sealing Anora's room tight.

Alistair had known immediately how bad this truly was. If the templars could not detect this magic, that was bad. What was worse – and more likely – was that Howe was paying off the templars. The idea that the higher-ranking templars were allowing this to happen put the future king in a foul mood, and it was with a dark cloud hanging over him that he led them to Howe's rooms, Erlina following in their wake.

The entrance from Howe's rooms to the dungeons wasn't even masked in any way, a simple door standing half-open in the corner showing that Howe was likely down there himself. Fergus stood there now, in front of that door, Leliana searching the room quickly for triggers and other surprises before she would let them head into the bowels of the dungeons.

Satisfied that there was nothing to find, she resumed her place ahead of himself, Alistair, and Erlina, leading them through the door. It really shouldn't surprise him that the former Arl Urien had such easy access to his dungeons. The man had been a sadist, taking great pleasure in torturing information out of his enemies. But why did that slimy weasel Vaughan not take the Arling when his father died at Ostagar? Had anyone _seen_ Vaughan? What the hell happened to the man? Fergus had never liked him, but he'd still like to know.

The first cell they came across was guarded. However, the second the guard's attention was taken by Fergus's party, a hand shot out from between the bars, the arm wrapping around the guard's throat and yanking hard. The guard died with a strained gargle. The arm dropped the guard, then reappeared lower, fishing keys off of him. Fergus and his companions just gaped for a moment before finally moving forward to see who it was that had taken advantage of their brief distraction of his guard.

A dark-haired man with finely chiseled features freed himself from the cell. He stood only in his underclothes, much of his chest and legs covered in knife wounds at various stages of healing. Yet he stood tall, strong, like a warrior, even if he was also so lean it bordered on gaunt. Whoever he was, they had tried to break him, and he had not broken.

"I thank you for creating such distraction, stranger." His accent was somewhere between Orlesian and Ferelden, captivating to listen to. "I have been waiting _days_ for the opportunity. Do you-" He cut himself off, eyes narrowing at Alistair before widening in recognition. "Alistair? Is that you?"

"Who…? Wait, I _do_ know you." Alistair stepped forward, past Leliana. "You were at my Joining…" Turning, he addressed Leliana and Fergus, a smile on his face. "He's one of us, a warden from Orlais. Jader, I think?" Turning back, he held a hand out. "I'm sorry, but I don't remember your name."

Taking Alistair's hand firmly, the Orlesian warden smiled. "I am Riordan, senior warden of Jader, but born and bred in Highever and glad to be home."

"Funny," Fergus finally said, scrutinizing the new warden's face. "You look vaguely familiar. Did you or your family serve the castle?"

The man smiled. "Yes, my father is horse master there. Are you of Highever, as well?"

Fergus felt his gut fall. "Yes. I'm Fergus Cousland, actually. Your father taught me how to ride…" He was likely dead now, though it was possible he made it through the attack unharmed.

"I would ask what the rightful Teyrn of Highever is doing skulking in the dungeons of the Arl of Denerim, but I already know that nothing is as it should be in Ferelden these days."

"So how did Arl Howe capture you?" This was Leliana, always with a mind on the business at hand. Feeling guilty, Fergus stepped back, letting the small woman do what she did best.

"With an offer of hospitality and a poisoned chalice, I'm afraid," the Orlesian warden answered, looking down at Leliana with no hint of mirth at her diminutive height. He was of Orlais. He likely knew what hidden strength there was in a woman – Orlesian men always seemed to learn that lesson far better than Fereldans did. "I was fool enough to think Loghain didn't yet know who I was."

"And what are you doing here in the first place?"

"For the most part, attempting to hold my tongue," he quipped, before growing serious again. "I was sent when we received no word from King Cailan as to the outcome at Ostagar. The king had invited the Grey Wardens of Orlais and their support troops to join him, then… nothing. The first we heard of Loghain's edict was when our two hundred wardens and two dozen divisions of cavalry were turned away at the border. That was also when we learned that the Ferelden Wardens were being blamed for the massacre at Ostagar." Taking a deep breath, he finished. "I instead volunteered to come alone, to learn best how to fight the Blight and this regime simultaneously. As a native Fereldan, it made the most sense."

"It was good you did," Alistair said, "as Loghain is not overly fond of Orlais at the moment. But… now that we have you here… will we have no other help when the Blight resurges in the spring?"

"Alas, there will be no time to send messages. I have no pigeons trained for home, and the snows will keep any messengers from crossing the Frostbacks. Once the snows melt, I can send messages with runners, but my forces will likely not arrive in time for the first waves of darkspawn. It will only be us, I'm afraid. I hear you have not been doing a bad job in raising an army yourself, however."

"We should get moving," Leliana warned, her eyes darting from corner to corner.

"Of course, you are right. I will follow with you until an opportunity to leave presents itself. There is a contact I must meet as soon as humanly possible – he is holding vital warden items. Where are you staying in the meantime, so that I might find you if we get separated?"

"The Arl of Redcliffe's estate," Leliana answered, starting forward cautiously, eyes in every corner for traps and the like. "Riordan, is Howe down here? Or perhaps a mage?"

Rieordan nodded. "Both, in fact."

"Good. I would hate to keep Fergus from his revenge if I can help it."

Fergus was taken aback by the small woman's statement, but happy nonetheless. They all seemed to understand his need to bring Howe to justice.

Their luck didn't hold much longer as they progressed through the dungeons, however. Opening a door to a torture in progress, the jailor and guards knew that Fergus and his companions should not be there. They inquired as to their purpose, but rather than try to bluster her way through, Leliana pulled a knife from her hip and sent it straight into the jailor's throat, sending him to the ground in a fountain of blood.

Fergus wasted no time in wondering at the small redhead's lethality, instead pulling the unfamiliar guard's sword from his belt and joining the other two in clearing the room of enemies. It was a quick job – these guards were fine against the street scum of Denerim, but nothing against three seasoned warriors – and when they were through, Fergus wiped his sword on the guards' gambeson and sheathed it. They freed the prisoner, a son of a bann currently in the city, and let him find his own way out. He promised to tell his father of the wardens' deeds, running away from the instruments of torture that would have lamed him had they not rescued him when they did.

After that, time seemed to seep into itself. They freed a templar, someone who had been chasing the mage who Loghain convinced to poison Eamon. They freed an elf who had somehow escaped the Alienage. He said he was after Vaughan for some truly horrific things the man had done to the elf's cousin and sister, as well as his own intended bride, who he never gotten the chance to marry thanks to Vaughan. It didn't surprise Fergus, unfortunately. Vaughan was a horrible person, and sadist who needed to force others to do his bidding in order to feel powerful. When they came across Vaughan's fresh corpse, Fergus almost felt good that he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else. The man had clearly wasted away down here, though they saw no sign of torture. He was merely captive, for reasons unknown. The elf had only sighed, said something about it at least being done, and had run off before they could even offer him safe haven at Eamon's estate.

In between each rescue, they killed guards. There were so many, far more than should be in the dungeons of any place in the dead of night, except perhaps a prison. But they were easily dispatched, at least. Fergus did not like killing so many; he had never developed a taste for it. But he did what was needed, and in this case it was necessary. If these guards were to wake and alert the rest of the estate to their presence, they would not be able to fight off the veritable flood that would inundate them.

Time no longer flipped in on itself when they crossed the threshold of the biggest chamber in the dungeon, however. Somehow Fergus knew who he would find inside, and the prospect both terrified him and made his heart race in anticipation. His wife's rapist and killer, the murderer of his son and parents, the desecrator of his sister's body; all this he would find in that room. And he would end the man. He longed to make Howe suffer, but he knew he could not do it. A simple death would have to be enough. This venture could not be solely about him and his vengeance. There were too many people who could be hurt if he lost focus of the true reason they were here.

Leliana inched the door open, waiting for a trap to be triggered. When nothing came, she peeked in.

"I know someone is there," came Howe's voice. Fergus had a hard time tamping down on the rage building inside of him, but he succeeded, swallowing it up as he looked upon Leliana, who was so dear to Solona. He would not let happen to her what happened to his own beloved. He owed the Warden-Commander that, at least, for letting him come along despite Eamon relegating him to the inside of the estate.

Sighing, Leliana pushed the door open, but not before ensuring both Riordan and Erlina were safely away from the doorway. They strode through the door, finding that Rendon Howe was there, dressed impeccably in the clothes he had worn to Eamon's estate that morning. Flanking either side were men with magical staves like those used by the mages in Solona's party. Fergus supposed they could just be wooden staves, but the way the room crackled with unseen energies made it clear that that was not true.

"Well, well! All the little _traitors_ waltzing right into my home! I must say, I'm surprised Eamon would condone you invading and murdering my men." Howe's voice still had that sickening quality that Fergus had never liked in all the years he had known the man. It sounded like he was talking around a thick syrup in his throat. "Is he losing faith in the persuasive powers of his Landsmeet?"

"We're here for Anora," Alistair said.

"Oh, that's not totally true, is it? Otherwise you wouldn't have brought the Cousland brat." Drawing the sword and dagger from his hip, he narrowed his eyes at Alistair, his lips forming into a sneer. "You should have left when you had the chance, _bastard_. Slunk off to the Anderfels to hide with the rest of your kind. This Landsmeet is a farce. Loghain will triumph, and you will die."

Leliana struck first, just as Howe finished his speech. Fergus pulled his sword, barely registering that Leliana had thrown another knife, taking one of the mages in the shoulder. Apparently it was a favored move of hers, surprising her opponents with a throwing knife to the throat. He had no time to pay attention to the others, however, as Howe closed in on him immediately.

He was good, Fergus had to give him that. He wasted no more breath on speech, simply lashing out with his sword. Fergus took the blade upon his own, having no time to draw his shield. Unfortunately, he stepped right into a classic opening move used by those with two weapons, and he was now wide open to take a slice to his arm from Howe's dagger. Fergus wised up after that, backing away a step and watching his adversary closely, looking for a pattern. He would deflect a blade that came too close, backing away from the dagger when it lashed out, and he made sure he had open space to his back so he wasn't backed into any corners. He had spent enough time sparring with Zevran on the way to Denerim to know that to fight against this method required patience, and it usually ended very quickly.

In the end, his opening came in the form of the Arl of Amaranthine stumbling. Alistair had aimed and thrown one of the staves of the now-dead mages at Howe, hitting him between the shoulder blades. With a grunt, Fergus rushed forward, stepping inside the man's reach as he buried his sword in his gut, all the way to the hilt.

Rendon Howe fell to the floor with a gurgle. "Maker spit on you!" he croaked, holding his guts in with one arm as he tried to raise himself onto the other elbow. "I deserved… more…"

Fergus didn't allow him to finish, or to die with the last word. He delivered a hard kick to the man's stomach, watching with narrowed eyes as Howe shrieked in pain. The shriek died into a gurgle, and then he was dead.

"He's dead. My family's murderer is… dead!"

"Fergus, we need you to stay with us. We will celebrate later, yes?" This was Leliana, speaking to him from the table in the center of the room. Upon it lay a bloody figure. _Poor sod_ , Fergus thought to himself. _Least we can do is see if he's still alive, maybe get him out of here_.

"Is he all right?" Fergus asked.

" _She_ is alive, yes," Leliana replied, reaching for the restraints. "Alistair, these have locks. I could pick them, but see if one of these we have killed has a key on them first."

Alistair and Fergus both searched the bodies, Fergus coming away from Howe with a set of keys. "Here. Let me." Trying each key, he found the third one to open the shackles on the poor girl's ankles. As he moved to her wrists, he got a good look at her face.

And his heart stopped beating.

"Elissa?" he breathed. How did Howe have his sister? She was alive? What…

Alistair put a hand to his shoulder. "Fergus? Do you _know_ this girl?"

Time sped back up, and Fergus couldn't get the shackles off fast enough. Taking her face in his hands, he spoke again. "Elissa? Sister, can you hear me?"

He heard the other two gasp, but he had no time for them right at this moment. All he could see was his sister's beautiful hair wild about her head, her perfect skin split by instruments of torture, her lips cracked and her modesty laid bare for all to see. She wore only a short shift, and with her arms raised as they were it almost exposed all of her to the air.

She groaned quietly, shifting her head. Letting out a sob of relief, he hugged her to him, heedless of her blood. As he pulled back, Alistair flung something over her. "It's all I can find on short notice. I'm sorry it's not more." It was a cloak, a short one, but it worked. He nodded his understanding, gratefully wrapping it around his precious sister as best he could before he hefted her slight weight in his arms.

"Let us be gone from this place," he said, and they rushed out, Erlina and Riordan on their heels. Now that he had his sister, he was completely unconcerned with Howe's corpse off to the side.

Their flight to the queen's room went by in a timeless stream. He could only look down into his sister's face. She seemed to be waking. Her eyes were open now, and her weight was not as dead in his arms, her body shifting to be held more comfortably.

As the others approached Anora's room and spoke to her, he held back, trying to speak to his sister. "Elissa? Can you hear me?"

Her hand stole up to his face, blessedly warm and soft against his skin. "Fergus? Is that… you?" Tears appeared in her eyes. Her voice was barely a whisper, but even that wavered as her hand actually touched his face.

He found tears swimming in his own eyes. "Maker, _yes_ , Elissa! I can't believe you're alive! And that Howe had you…"

"Oh, it was horrible," she croaked, burying her face in his chest, the hard planes of his armor not seeming to bother her. "He…"

He shushed her. "Shh, it's all right. We'll get you out of here, get you cleaned up, and you can tell us about it then, okay?"

"Okay," she breathed, gulping back her tears. She always had been rather stoic. "I can probably walk …"

He laughed. "Fat chance! No, I'm getting you out of here, and we're healing you up so you can beat the pants off me in our next sparring session."

She smiled a little, letting out a choked sound that was probably a laugh. Before they could banter anymore, however, Anora approached him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Your sister, Fergus. She is alive? How?"

"Howe had her. I don't know anything else, and I'm not going to question her in this state," he answered.

"I agree," she said.

Alistair cleared his throat. "If we're done with our reunion, we _really_ need to get moving. We no longer look like a party that can disguise itself in this house."

Fergus looked around at them: three guards, two servants, and two bleeding victims of torture. No, Alistair was right, they needed to leave as soon as possible. Telling the other two to lead the way, Fergus fell in behind them, holding his sister close to him. He never thought he'd see her again. He never thought he'd see anyone he'd known in his childhood again. He kept repeating it to himself over and over. He had his dear, sweet little sister back!

When they reached the entrance hall, however, they were stopped. Spread out around the room was a full squad of twenty soldiers in the livery of the king: Loghain's men. And leading them was Ser Cauthrien herself. To her side stood a battered and bloodied man in the uniform of the City Guard. Clearly, Fergus and his companions had been less than thorough in ensuring everyone's death.

"Warden, in the name of the Regent, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Rendon Howe and his men-at-arms. Surrender, and you may be shown mercy."

Fergus made to step forward, to claim the murder as his own, but Alistair cut him off, holding a hand out to keep Fergus behind him. "I'll surrender, if you let everyone else go. They are here at my behest."

Cauthrien's eyes narrowed. She stepped forward, coming to stand before Alistair, studying his face. Her eyes snapped to Leliana, as well, and she spoke, nodding. "Very well, I accept. But I want the Orlesian whore as well. The rest… can go."

She obviously had not recognized Fergus, something the Cousland heir had Alistair to thank for. He tried to protest, but his armor was taken hold of from behind, and he was steered to the door. Looking back, he saw it was Anora. He had no choice; she was right, even if she wasn't actually saying anything. What could the three of them, with two injured and two non-combatants, hope to accomplish against twenty of Cauthrien's best? They would have to mount a rescue. That was all there was for it.

Feeling defeat take his heart hostage, he allowed himself to be marched out through the front entrance of the estate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So not all questions answered yet, I know. But at least you know how they got to the end of the last chapter, yes? I know the pace is a little fast, but I wanted to get across how frenzied it would be to be there. You don't always get that feeling in the game you know? Hopefully it's fast, but not rushed.
> 
> The next chapter or two may get kind of dark, but I don't tend to get dark, really, so even my dark probably won't be that bad. But fair warning, regardless.


	55. Fort Drakon

"And where is he now?" Zevran asked, his expression unchanged from its previous scowl.

Fergus flinched as if struck by the elf's words. "The warden from Jader? He ran off the moment we were outside. He had his contact to meet. But he said he'd meet us here on the morrow."

Zevran nodded. "All right. Clean yourself up, but leave the uniform. Natia and I will meet you in your room in ten minutes."

"But, my sister-"

"Is in the hands of the best healer in all of Ferelden. I will get them back, Fergus, and you will help. It is not your fault they were taken, but Solona will not see that until she has her brother and her lover back in her sight. And make no mistake – it is the brother of her heart that has been lost this night. That, and the love of her soul. _That_ is what you are helping me retrieve. All other titles matter not to her, nor to me. Not in this."

Swallowing further protest, Fergus nodded. "I understand. I… look forward to whatever plan you've concocted, because I'm fresh out of ideas."

Zevran's grin was utterly mirthless. "Oh, I have a plan. And it will hopefully be brilliant in its simplicity."

"A high regard of yourself, I see."

Zevran shook his head. "Merely plenty of experience with this sort of thing. Now, go. I will meet you shortly."

Turning, Zevran went back into the makeshift infirmary, this time unmolested by the queen. Wynne was now inside, tending to the injured Cousland girl. Solona was aiding her, mixing herbs and other ingredients together as they washed and applied poultices to the girl's myriad wounds. The girl herself whimpered, yelping occasionally. Snagging a servant standing by, but idle at the moment, he spoke to her.

"Please, will you go fetch our companion Natia Brosca for me? She is the female dwarf that accompanied us here. Bring her to Fergus Cousland's room, please."

Nodding, the elven woman scampered away. Zevran was so preoccupied that he did not even make a point of watching her disappearing rear end in that draping dress she wore. Instead, he contemplated his lover for a moment, finally clearing his throat to get their attention.

"We will be leaving within the hour. I will be with Teyrn Cousland until then, if we are needed."

Solona looked up from her work. Her sleeves were rolled back, the tops of her hands smeared with blood. Blotches of blood also stained the front of her shirt, and there was a smear along her brow and in her white hair where she had obviously swiped an arm absent-mindedly.

"Maker's speed, Zevran," she said, catching his eyes with her own. He nodded, knowing she saw the promise in gaze before he slipped from the room. He would get Alistair and Leliana back. If he did not owe it to the wardens, he most certainly owed it to the bard, after she so miraculously saved him in the Wilds.

An hour later, they stood outside the fort. Zevran squirmed, receiving a blow to the back of his head as he tried to wriggle free of his bonds.

"Quit it, elf, or I'll gut you and 'ave it done with," his guard gruffed. Frowning, Zevran settled. He hoped Natia was more comfortable than _he_ was.

Their guard – Fergus, still dressed in the armor he'd killed Howe in – marched with them right up to the gates of Fort Drakon.

"State your business," a guard at the entrance said. He sounded bored. _Good_ , Zevran thought to himself, keeping his face in a scowl despite feeling like smiling. _Bored guards are easily tricked_.

Fergus put on his best commoner's accent. "I 'ave a pair of prisoners fer the regen'."

"We weren't notified…"

"They were just caught," Fergus gruffed. "Skulkin' about the arl's 'ouse after 'e was found dead, they were. They're companions to the warden who was caught there earlier tonight. They're to be 'oused with 'im."

The two guards exchanged a look. The first one to speak then spoke again. "Very well. Do you know the way?"

"I'm sure I can figure it out. It's just a knife-ear and a dwarf. 'Ow much 'arm can they do?"

That got a laugh from the two guards. Zevran struggled a second time, scowling harder than ever up at the other two humans. They just snickered and allowed Fergus to pass through into the fort.

* * *

The cell was cold and damp. The stones were covered in slime, unpleasant to touch. Alistair had tried finding a place to sit, but given that he couldn't get past the disgusting feel of the slime seeping into his trousers, the only piece of clothing afforded him after he had been brought here, he gave up on that venture rather quickly.

Leliana was doing an admirable job of not losing her mind, though Alistair did not know how. He knew she was trying not to get lost in her past, when she had been captured and raped and tortured by the Orlesian Chevaliers. He had tried to get her to talk a few times, but after several one-word answers he gave up, merely being available if she needed him. Though he couldn't imagine what he could possibly do. Their situation was… beyond desperate. But at least they got the queen out. And Solona and Fergus were safe. He'd managed at least that much by surrendering himself. He hadn't anticipated Ser Cauthrien recognizing Leliana, however.

"They'll get us out of here," he finally said. Leliana was standing in the corner, murmuring to herself. He recognized that it was a particular section of the Chant of Light falling from her lips.

She turned at his words, her arms over her chest. She had been stripped down to smallclothes and breast band when thrown in here, and her horrific scarring was on display for anyone to see. Alistair tried desperately not to stare, but he couldn't help it – it was amazing, the sheer scope of punishment she had endured. It was… well, it was humbling, in a way. She had endured that and not broken, maintained her innocence and her ability to see good in people, her ability to find love and light in the people around her. Alistair was not so sure he could do the same.

"You know they'll get us out of here," he said again, coming to stand before her, resting his hands lightly on her shoulders while he looked down into her eyes. She looked… small, afraid, like a timid animal. Or perhaps a _caged_ animal. And like a caged animal, he knew she was capable of lashing out should she feel trapped. "Solona will not let us rot here. If she has to bring Hell and Damnation down upon this place, she will not rest until we are free. Everything else we might have to endure before that is immaterial, mere child's play compared to what she and our companions can do when properly motivated."

He was surprised when he saw the brief flicker of a smile upon her lips, in her eyes. "Yes. She did set herself on fire the last time I was in danger, didn't she?"

He grinned cheekily back at her. "And that was the Broodmother! Imagine what she can do to someone as frail as Loghain?"

"Frail, am I?" Alistair released Leliana as he turned on the ball of his foot, his training making him drop into a defensive stance despite his inability to do anything. Walking toward their cell was the regent himself, his face set in a scowl as per usual. "We'll see how frail your Orlesian harlot is compared to me."

Coming to the cell door, he produced a key and unlocked it. A scuffling sound behind him made Alistair glance back, only to see Leliana pushing herself as far into the corner of the cell as she could manage. Her eyes were wide with fear, her arms wrapped tightly about herself, her head shaking back and forth as she mouthed a single word over and over again: "no." Frowning, Alistair turned back around just in time to see a fist heading toward his face. Unable to avoid it, he grunted in pain as the world around him upended, his body hitting the ground.

Leliana screamed, Loghain grunted in pain, and when Alistair was able to shake the daze from his vision, he saw the tiny redhead being dragged by both arms through the door, struggling heroically the entire way. He pushed himself to his feet, but the door was slammed shut before he could make it, the lock sliding into place with a frightening sense of finality.

Leliana was not staying still, however, nor was she staying quiet. She was no longer just _mouthing_ the word "no," but sobbing and shrieking it frantically. When a guard came forward to aid Loghain, she kicked out with both feet, sending the man to the ground. Another came forward, this time catching her ankles, and as she sobbed and pleaded for them to leave her alone, they shackled her face-down upon the table in the middle of the room. Once she was secured, she grew deathly silent. It frightened Alistair more than her ruckus had.

"It is said," Loghain started, pulling a dagger from his belt and tracing it up Leliana's leg from her ankle to her buttocks, "that the Grey Warden favors the redheaded Orlesian girl."

 _He thinks Leliana and I are lovers. Maybe this could help us… It makes no difference. We may not be lovers, but she is as a sister to me_.

Looking over to Alistair, Loghain narrowed his eyes. "I hope this hurts you as much as it will _her_." With the snap of his wrist, Loghain cut away Leliana's smallclothes, eliciting a small sob from the frightened woman.

"You _bastard_!" Alistair screamed, rattling the bars to his cell. "You are a monster, Loghain! I'm going to _enjoy_ hanging you for _treason_!"

Loghain merely flicked his wrist again, and away fell Leliana's breast band. Another sob escaped the bard, pulling directly on Alistair's heart. Rattling the bars again, Alistair tried to think of _anything_ he could do. But nothing came to mind. Loghain _wanted_ him upset. He could only watch as Loghain trailed his dagger up and down Leliana's back.

"I see you've endured this sort of thing before," the regent drawled, clearly addressing Leliana and the landscape of scarring down her body. "And you're terrified. Perhaps it won't take that long for you to break? So tell me: why are you here? What secrets are you bringing back to Orlais?"

"I… I am not here for Orlais, Ser," she squeaked, only to shriek a moment later as Loghain bore down upon his dagger, tracing it slowly over the curve of her hip.

"Wrong. Answer. I know you're here to spy upon my country, whore. So start talking, or I will reopen every wound you've ever endured."

And so Leliana's torture began, Alistair powerless to do anything… or so he thought. But as she denied the accusations against her, sobbing and pleading and screaming until her voice was hoarse, Alistair was struck by how _strong_ she was. How strong she had to have been, even when she was going through this alone in Orlais. And that gave him an idea.

"Leliana!" he called.

"Shut up, bastard!" Loghain snapped.

"Leliana!" he called again, pushing himself away from the bars as a guard slapped his weapon where the warden's hands had been. They would have to open the door if they wanted to shut his mouth. "Leliana! You are so strong! You can make it through this! They will get us out, and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you are stronger than any of the cretins doing this to you!"

"Shut him up!" Loghain hissed. But it was working. Leliana had stopped sobbing. Her head had turned to face Alistair, and between the long strands of red hair he could see the electric blue of her eyes, focused upon him.

Staring right back into those eyes, even as the door to his cell opened, even as Loghain tried to distract Leliana with his dagger, Alistair continued talking to the bard. He told her how strong she was, about how they were going to get through this and prevail against Loghain, against the Blight. He was punched once more in the face, breaking his nose this time, but it didn't stop him. He was carried by three men to another table, strapped down facing the ceiling, all while yelling about how strong Leliana was.

It wasn't until a rag was forced into his mouth that he had to stop. But by that point he had accomplished his goal – the heat was taken off of Leliana, and he watched as Loghain turned to him, touching his dagger to Alistair's chest before flicking it from his sternum to the waistband of his pants. He screamed into the rag, watching as the smile of the insane crept into Loghain's eyes. Suddenly he wasn't so sure if they could endure long enough for their friends to find a way to free them…

* * *

She floated. Her world was made of shades of grey. She couldn't see water, but she felt as though she were floating upon the waves, gently lilting with them as the water moved about. It was a pleasant feeling. It was warm here. Timeless. She could spend eternity here and be content.

The timeless sensation was stolen from her as pain lanced through her body. Leliana tried to cry out, but found that the only sound she could make was a dry croak. Even that threatened her head, making it feel light and woozy. She tried to ask for mercy, to say once more that she was not the Orlesian spy Loghain thought she was, but her voice refused to cooperate.

Her first clue that something was different this time was that the cuff around her wrist came off, and gentle hands eased her arm into a more comfortable position. Blood immediately rushed in, making it tingle all up and down the extremity. Then the other arm was free, followed shortly by her ankles, a soothing, familiar voice speaking to her softly in a musical accent.

"It is all right, Leliana. We have come to free you, to bring you back to your love."

Zevran. It was Zevran. She let out a wretched sob, relief flooding through her even as pain lanced over her entire body. With each movement her skin was aflame anew, but it was pain she could push through, now that she knew she was safe. She felt herself turned in his arms, a rough cloth immediately pulled over her to preserve her modesty – laughable, but appreciated nonetheless. Her hand stole up to his face, tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn't need to speak her gratitude, she knew, but she still she mouthed it. His face split into a beautiful, genuine smile.

"You are more than welcome, _señorita_. Now let's get you out of here, yes? I do not know what errand called Loghain away, nor how soon he will be back to continue his work."

"He had some problem in the city that had to be dealt with," Alistair's voice sounded, though Leliana could not yet see him. She was relieved that he was well enough to speak, though.

Zevran nodded. "Well, lucky for us, as I had not planned on having to contend with him when we got here. Now let us make sure I don't have to improvise, yes?"

He stood her up on shaky legs, and she took in the tableau before her. Zevran and Natia stood in plain black clothing, though the bard in Leliana recognized their hidden weapons. Fergus stood in the distance, watching the door, two city guards lying at his feet. Leliana could not tell if they were dead or just unconscious. Alistair stood in his trousers only, the front of them almost entirely covered in blood. His chest showed the proof of the torture he had born in order to take the pain away from Leliana.

Despite that, he was far less damaged than she, both physically and mentally. Leliana had suffered through the excruciating mental torture of flashbacks. The entire time the hot knives had slid over her skin, reopening the scars she bore, she had expected someone to force himself inside of her. She expected the sound of the table creaking with the weight of another person, the scent of spittle and sweat and unwashed men, the sound of trousers being undone and dropping around ankles.

It had never come. But that did not mean Leliana did not expect it, almost to the point of being able to _see_ it, taste it, smell it.

She was not free of its threat until now, in the company of trusted companions.

She took hold of the cloak she'd been given, wrapping it about her shoulders and holding it closed in the front with both hands. Natia was already walking about the room, her gaze intent upon its walls. Leliana looked questioningly to Zevran as the elf offered her a cup of water from the table that had been next to her and Alistair's cell. Taking a small sip and feeling it first burn and then soothe on its way down, Leliana was finally able to get her voice to work, hoarse though it was from her screaming and sobbing.

"What is Natia doing?" she managed.

Zevran smiled, holding the cup up to her lips again while he answered. "These places always have hidden passages, entrances and exits used by servants or by generals to get in and out that are not commonly known. Natia, with her stone sense and her history of thievery, felt sure that she could find them if they are here."

"And they are!" Natia turned, a triumphant smile upon her face. "It smells like water. Probably leads to the sewers, or maybe a waterway out of the fort."

"Wonderful. Can you open it?"

Natia just snorted, then touched a particular stone in the wall. A seam appeared when she applied pressure, traveling halfway to the ceiling along the natural breaks between the stones. Pushing on the doorway made it swing back just enough to allow Fergus and Alistair, the bulkiest of them all, to wriggle through. Fergus would need to shed his armor, but there was no love lost there, Zevran knew.

"Good," the elf said, putting the cup aside and moving close to Leliana. "Let us be gone from this place." Turning his attention to Leliana, he asked, "Can you walk?"

She tried to assess honestly. "I think so? They did nothing to the soles of my feet…"

"That is a small blessing," Zevran said with a nod. "I will be here in case you falter. But we should be going." Zevran was right. Every moment they spent in this place risked someone happening upon them, or the return of Loghain from whatever errand he had left to take care of.

Nodding, she took a few shaky test steps, finding that she was weak but able to walk just fine. She moved to the wall as Fergus began to strip down to the linens he wore beneath his armor. As she went, Natia held out a knife to her. The weight of it in her hand gave her a sense of security she had not know it could possess. Catching Alistair's eyes for a moment, she shared with him her gratitude for being here with her, for stealing Loghain's attention away from her and literally taking a beating to keep her from having to endure more. He smiled, nodding, his broken nose and bleeding skin somehow making him look more rugged and handsome, stronger than he had ever seemed. She reached out and placed a hand on his arm, mindful of his wounds as she touched him. Then, she squeezed past him, and they were hurrying through the passage, the door now shut behind them, masking their path of escape.

* * *

Their patient was finally sleeping. Solona washed her hands and arms in the washbasin in the corner, feeling her entire body ache with the tension of the night. Wynne had worked her proverbial magic, getting elfroot potions and pain and sleeping droughts into the girl Fergus had brought in, saving her from having to endure astringents and stitches while awake and aware.

Only now was Solona aware of the others in the room, namely the tall blonde beauty who could be none other than the queen. Solona wasn't sure how she felt about the woman being here. She knew this whole endeavor was to save Anora, but that venture had landed Alistair and Leliana captive in Fort Drakon. It was difficult not to blame her…

The mage was saved from having to figure out how to approach the queen when she was approached instead. "I am told you are the Warden-Commander?"

Solona nodded, trying her best to reserve judgment. "Yes, I am Warden-Commander Amell." Somehow, it seemed right to introduce herself that way to the Queen of Ferelden. "And I suspect you are Queen Anora?"

"Indeed, I am. If you please, we must begin strategizing, planning what we will do about the Landsm-"

"I beg your pardon, Your Highness, but I am doing nothing else until the others return. And I will not wake Eamon until Alistair is returned to us, whole and hale."

" _I_ am the queen, and you will do as I say!" Anora snapped, but Solona again did not allow her to go any further than that.

"Again, I beg your pardon, but the Grey Wardens do not fall under your jurisdiction, Your Highness. You do not command me, nor anyone under my command. And even if you did, right now I do not think there is anything you could do to make me do other than as I have said. I care not for your rank this night." She could see Anora's face grow red in anger, but Solona had not outstepped her bounds, and she knew it. Still, she was not completely blind to the future consequences of her actions. Pissing off the queen this early might go badly for her later. "Wait… I'm sorry, Your Highness. I am stressed, and tired. Two people I love dearly were taken captive in securing your escape. I am… preoccupied."

The queen's expression softened, and she bowed her head. "Forgive me. I forget myself. I am a guest in this place, after all, and you were so kind as to come secure my freedom in the first place. And I suppose you are not the only one who is tired and stressed…"

"Might I suggest you get some rest, Your Highness? I'm sure one of these servants can show you to a guest room?" Right on cue, Ellia, now cleaned up from aiding herself and Wynne in the care of their patient, appeared, offering to do just as Solona suggested. Queen Anora accepted, leaving Solona to sag under the weight of her worries.

"They will be all right, Solona," Wynne assured her, now washing her own hands and arms in the basin. Solona leaned back against the wall before sinking down to the floor, burying her head in her hands. She did not weep, only sighing heavily. She was just so worried, and so _infuriatingly incapable_ of doing anything to get them back.

"He will get them back, Solona," Wynne said again, kneeling down next to the warden and placing a comforting hand on her back. "Just give him some time, and he will be back with Alistair and Leliana in tow."

As if Wynne spoke prophecy, Solona heard a commotion outside the room. As she got to her feet, the door opened, and in walked Zevran, carrying Leliana's limp form in his arms. In a single moment Solona took in her appearance: ragged hair, her limp body wrapped in a cloak, and her head lolling over Zevran's elbow. Behind them came Alistair, leaning heavily upon Fergus. Natia brought up the rear, but Solona barely paid her any attention, instead rushing to Zevran and Leliana.

"Leli!" She reached for her lover, only now seeing the dark stains on the cloak that could only be blood soaking through from underneath. "Maker… what _happened_?!"

"Loghain," Alisitair croaked. His voice was dry and ragged, and when she looked over, she noticed that he was literally _covered_ in cuts and bruises, like someone had whaled on him with knives and fists. "Loghain was very _persistent_ in finding out what the 'Orlesian spy' was doing in Ferelden."

Solona scowled, murder flaring to life within her momentarily before Zevran fully surrendered Leliana into her arms. Then that murder was pushed aside by a million other emotions, the strongest among them worry, grief, relief at having her back, and dread at what she might find under the cloak.

"Leli, can you hear me, my love?"

"She passed out a little while ago," Zevran said in answer. "She needs your healing attention _now_."

Nodding, Solona carried her over to a pallet. As she began to pull away the cloak, Alistair was helped to another pallet by Fergus. Wynne began immediately to attend to him. Peeling back the cloak, Solona hissed. Very little of Leliana's skin was the clean, healthy pinkish shade of alabaster that it normally was. Where it was not smeared with her blood it was smudged with dirt. Even her beautiful breasts and the hair over her sex had dirt and dried blood.

And yet the blood did not stem from wounds that were visible at the moment. Dreading what she would find, and yet knowing she had to find it so she could treat it, Solona spread the cloak wide and hefted her lover, turning her onto her stomach.

At which point she nearly began to cry.

Every precious bit of pink, soft scar tissue that was so familiar to Solona had been split open. The bastard hadn't just tortured her; he had rubbed proverbial salt in already existing wounds. Suddenly, a thought of invisible scars came to her, and she looked up in a panic.

"Alistair!"

"What?" He sounded panicked, too, reacting to the alarm in her voice.

"Did he… did he force her?"

He shook his head, even as Wynne helped him to strip from his torn and bloodied trousers. "No. I managed to piss him off enough to start on _me_ before that occurred to him. Or maybe he does have some _small_ amount of honor left. Either way, nobody touched her. Not like that, at least. Not that she knew they wouldn't go so far…"

Relief flared inside of Solona. The physical wounds she could heal. Calling for fresh water, bandages, and herbs, she set about her task, working to save her beloved Leliana.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raven Sinead said that reading Fergus attempting to speak like a commoner was painful. Sorry about that. It made me snicker, though, so I left it.
> 
> This didn't get as dark as I thought it might. But a little bit, right? Poor helpless Solona...


	56. Aftermath

The dawn came, shining through the windows, waking Solona and Wynne from the tunnel vision they had acquired during the night. Leliana was breathing easily, her back, legs, and buttocks covered in poultices and bandages to heal and stave off infection. Over this was a light sheet, covering her modesty and keeping her warm. The next day would be exceedingly important – if she began to shiver, if she ran a fever, then they would need to act very quickly.

Looking down upon the bard, so precious to both wardens, and honestly quite precious to Wynne herself, the elder mage suddenly felt tears gathering beneath her lashes. She tried to hide them, tried to turn away and get control of herself, but Solona was the most observant student she'd ever had, and did not miss that something was wrong.

"Wynne? Wynne, what is the matter? Why are you crying?"

Giving in, Wynne let the tears fall, allowing the younger woman to gather her in her arms as she sobbed as quietly as she could. Zevran had left the room, going to report to Arl Eamon along with Fergus Cousland. Alistair had fallen asleep not long after Wynne had reset his broken nose. This meant that it was just the two of them awake in this room, and while she was unused to being weak like this with anyone but Zevran, she was just too drained to care once the deluge started.

To her credit, Solona did not back away, nor did she badger Wynne for an answer. She merely hugged the smaller woman, allowing Wynne's tears to soak her already bloodied shirt. They were on their knees, as they had been for most of the night as they cleaned wounds, crushed herbs and mixed salves, and applied poultices and changed bandages. She hurt, she was tired, and seeing her friends – like children to her – so hurt was taking its toll after an entire day with no sleep.

At last, her tears subsided, and she pulled away from her student, wiping her eyes with her hands. "Thank you," she murmured, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and blowing her nose.

"You're welcome Wynne," Solona replied, staring at her with that concerned expression she'd worn all night. "If I may ask, what was the matter?"

"Oh, all of it," Wynne said, gesturing to the room in general. "Losing Leliana and Alistair, having them come back tortured and bloodied. I am exhausted, and I am _frustrated_. I cannot use my magic, not to heal, not to soothe or comfort. It is exhausting holding it back, Solona." She looked up finally, her eyes clear, though she suspected they were red and puffy. "The spirit inside of me… it longs to reach out and heal those who are suffering, _especially_ those who have come to mean so much to _me_. Having to hold back my power, and having to rein in that spirit… it is _exhausting_. And frustrating beyond measure."

Solona nodded. "It is indeed frustrating. Having to hold back my power… today - yesterday - whichever day we're on now… it's the first time in weeks I have not entered the Fade, and I am feeling… incomplete for it. I believe that spirit in the Brecelian Forest was right. I am a creature both of this world and the Fade, and being kept from it is nerve-wracking." She then let out a laugh. "Or maybe it's the lack of sleep and the stress of the evening. In any event… It would be so easy to whisper the spell and heal these wounds, would it not?"

Wynne nodded, looking over their charges. "Indeed, it would. I have flowing through my body the power to ease this suffering… and the Chantry, in its misguided need to protect the populace from malificar, makes it so I cannot do what comes so naturally to me."

Solona cocked her head to the side. "Wynne. I had no idea you felt thusly."

Wynne just shrugged. "After we went through the Gauntlet, I realized that I have always felt so. But I had lived with it for so long that I had lost the burning edge to my anger. It merely made me sad that our gifts were locked away. Think of the good we could do! But now, seeing how I could help and being unable to do so because the templars would come knocking down our door? It is infuriating. And utterly unnecessary."

Solona nodded, and they lapsed into silence. Wynne attempted to leave the floor but did not get very far, gasping in pain as her knees voiced their protest. She was quite spry, it was true, but even a young maiden such as Solona was sure to have sore joints after kneeling on a stone floor for hours. For someone of Wynne's age, despite her youth spent in relative physical ease in the Tower, it simply made her knees refuse to do what she asked of them.

But Solona was there, pushing off the floor with audible cracks in her own joints and helping Wynne to her feet. Once up, thankfully, she was able to stay there. "Thank you," she said, shaking her head with a wry smile. "My age seems to be catching up to me."

"Go rest, Wynne," Solona suggested, urging her toward the door. "I'll stay here, and come get you if you're needed."

Wynne accepted. Honestly, she was so exhausted she wasn't sure she'd make it to hers and Zevran's room, but she attempted the feat anyway, noting that Solona immediately headed for the fourth and empty pallet in their makeshift infirmary. Thinking longingly of her own pillows and feather mattress, Wynne forced some energy into her steps, getting to her room as quickly as she could manage, forgoing even washing her hands in favor of going to sleep as soon as possible.

* * *

Alistair awoke suddenly, crying out as a fist came pummeling toward his face. He realized as soon as his eyes opened, however, that it was just a dream. He didn't like that he was having a nightmare about Fort Drakon, but it had only happened hours before. He really shouldn't be all that surprised.

"Are you all right?"

The voice was unfamiliar, feminine but gruff, as if overused. Furrowing his brows, he rolled over a little, seeing Fergus's sister half-sitting on her bed, propped against pillows with her hand out, stroking the ruff of Max's neck.

For some reason, the sight made him smile. "I'm fine. Just… dreaming," he answered, wincing some at the dry croak of his voice and the stinging pain all along his chest and stomach. His nose throbbed something fierce, and a gentle prod at it made his eyes water.

"A bad dream, I take it?"

He smirked, putting his hand back down. "Yes, you could say that…" After a moment, he offered, "I'm Alistair."

"Elissa," she replied, smiling warmly at him. "You're the one who helped my brother find me. You gave yourself up so that we could escape Howe. I have a lot to thank you for, Alistair."

The way she said his name… It was like she was savoring a particularly tender piece of meat. She caressed every syllable with her tongue and lips, making him feel warm and safe…

He shook his head. For the Maker's sake, it was just his _name_! Why was he suddenly so captivated by her lips? He must have hit his head harder than he thought.

"I didn't do all that much, really," he finally replied, tentatively pushing himself into a sit and leaning against the cool stone of the wall, soothing against his back. "Leliana there did more than me."

"Is that her name? What… what happened to the two of you? Why did Ser Cauthrien want you in exchange for us? We're the only remaining Couslands."

"I… well, I'm a Grey Warden, whereas she… is Orlesian. It's… hard to explain."

"Grey Wardens… I thought they were the ones at fault for the king's death?"

Alistair frowned. "Loghain Mac Tir was the one who betrayed the king, not my brethren. Loghain was supposed to attack, but he instead withdrew, and it killed King Cailan _and_ most of Ferelden's Grey Wardens. We only had a few dozen, but now we are down to precisely two."

"I see. And where is the other one?"

Alistair smiled, nodding over to Solona's prone form on the pallet immediately next to his own. "That there is our fearless leader."

Elissa looked over toward the Warden-Commander. "She was one of the healers…"

Alistair nodded. "She has many skills. She's a powerful mage, she knows potions and herbs for healing, and she fights like a mabari – and is about as loving to those she considers her family as said beasts. Speaking of which, how'd you get Max to take a shine to you? He usually doesn't take to someone so quickly."

She smiled as Max's head came up off the ground, cocking his head to the side in question at his name. "When I woke he came over to me and sniffed at my hair, as if to ask how I was doing. I used to have my own mabari, and I just… I scratched behind his ear how I used to do for her, and he let me. I don't know why."

Alistair raised his brows in surprise. "A mabari? That's an odd pet."

"I know. But I wanted one, and my father got her for me. He always did have a terrible time telling me 'no'. She… died, at Highever."

"I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say.

They settled into silence after that, not entirely comfortable, but also not entirely awkward. Alistair didn't know what to say, and Elissa did not offer any more information. He happened to know that her parents died at Highever, as well, but bringing it up wasn't exactly the right move at this juncture. What he really wanted was to hear her say his _name_ again, but didn't really know how to bring that about, either. So he kept stealing furtive glances, trying to decide as he studied her face what it was that had affected him so.

_Surely I've just struck my head too hard._

He didn't have long to contemplate. A few seconds later, his attention was called by a knock on the door. Turning, he saw Ellia standing there, a peculiar look upon her face, her brows furrowed with a line between them. Yet it smoothed out quickly enough, her Professional Servant face coming over her features instead. "The Arl would like to see you and your commander, Warden."

"All right, Ellia. But, uh… why the sudden formali… ty," he trailed off, watching her turn and leave the room.

"Friend of yours?"

Alistair turned back to see Elissa staring after the elf as well. "You could say that. We were servants in Eamon's castle together growing up. She hasn't actually insisted upon using a title for me until now." Sighing, he sat forward. "Well, if Eamon wants us, that means it's time to wake her up." Reaching over, her pushed on his fellow warden's shoulder. "Solona, wake up."

She didn't move.

He gave her a harder shove. "Solona! Wake up, damn you! They need us." Elissa giggled, causing Alistair to grin. It was a rather lovely sound.

"Alistair?" Solona said sleepily, lifting her head a little.

"Yes, you lazy lout. Wake up!"

"Lazy, am I? _You're_ the one who passed out before Wynne was even done with you," she said, yawning and stretching as she sat up. "Ah, I see you're awake," she noted, smiling at Elissa. "How are you feeling?"

Elissa smiled in return as Max got up, trotting over to Solona and jumping into her lap like he was a dog of ten pounds, and not a mighty war hound of over a hundred pounds. "I am feeling all right, thanks to you."

Solona smiled, pushing Max off of her and standing up. Glancing over to Alistair, she asked, "Do you need help getting dressed?"

He pushed off the sheet covering his lap, preparing to slide out of bed. "No. But maybe with my boots? Bending over might be a bit much right now."

Elissa let out a strangled yelp. Alistair looked over in concern, only to see that her face was bright red and her gaze was averted.

Solona, now on her feet, threw a pillow into his lap, startling him. "Alistair, you're practically naked, you idiot!"

He felt his face heat. "Oh. Right."

Shaking her head, she poked her face out the door, calling for clothing for her fellow warden so they could meet with the arl like he wanted, all while Elissa laughed, embarrassed but entertained nonetheless. She checked a sleeping Leliana while Alistair dressed, and five minutes later, they were hurrying out the door. The sound of Elissa's laugh and the way she said his name trailed after Alistair, and he did not forget about them until they actually made it to the arl's office.

* * *

"So you do not yet know _how_ she came to be in Howe's custody?"

Fergus shook his head. "No, Eamon, I have no idea. She was tortured and has only just awoken from the sleep the mages induced in her. I would not question her in the state in which I found her."

Eamon sighed, nodding. "That is unfortunate, but understandable. I am… sorry you found her in such a state. Though it gladdens my heart she was alive to _find_."

"Well, at least the mages could still do something for her without their magic," he answered, smiling over at Solona.

Before the warden could respond, the arl cleared his throat, recalling their attention. He likely did not want them to hash out their earlier disagreement at this moment. Though he had nothing to fear; in Solona's opinion, all was forgiven. Fergus had more than made up for any perceived slight in Solona's eyes. "I'm glad everyone is back, _mostly_ in one piece. But we really must discuss the Landsmeet."

Anora stepped forward, now attired in a dress that fit her station (borrowed from Isolde), and addressed Solona. "My father must be stopped. But once that is done, Ferelden will need a ruler. I would welcome your support for my throne, Warden."

Solona furrowed her brows, but it was Eamon who answered her. "Anora, we-"

"Your Majesty, or Your Highness." Anora corrected him.

"Yes, of course, Your Majesty." Eamon was clearly anything but pleased to be put in his place, but he continued nonetheless. "We had _planned_ on putting Alistair forward as the alternative to Loghain. As Maric's only _acknowledged_ son outside of his marriage to my sister, Queen Rowan, he is the only one left of the Theirin bloodline, and a reliable and accomplished leader in his own right. He and Solona have built us an army of allies from the three races of this land to meet the Blight in the spring. And they have done so through their own ingenuity, not through the power of their position. I believe… frankly, Your Highness, I believe he has a stronger position to be chosen over Loghain at the moment."

"But Alistair is a warden," Anora countered, addressing Solona and not Eamon, further putting him out of a leadership role. "You will be seen as my father's enemy, with the welfare of the Grey Wardens as your sole interest. If you support me, then you support your enemy's daughter, and Ferelden's best interests, versus only the wardens. Together we can do what alone we cannot, do you see?"

"You have a point," Solona muttered, considering the woman. She was clearly smart. She had likely run the country _for_ Cailan for the last five years. That was typically how it went, especially with young men like Cailan, who were generally far more interested in glory through battle than the mundane, everyday issues of ruling a nation.

"On the other hand," Eamon argued, "you are his daughter. People are likely to think you a puppet for his wishes once back on the throne. That aside, you are not of royal blood. That was fine as long as the _king_ was, but unless you married Alistair, that would be impossible."

"Now _there's_ an idea," Fergus murmured, looking interestedly from Alistair to Anora. "A king of the royal blood, with the experience and influence of Anora as his queen…"

Anora turned, taking a moment to study Alistair. Her expression was shrewd, calculating. Alistair, for his part, looked uncomfortable under her scrutiny but stood his ground. Solona wished with all her might they had some secret language they could communicate in, so she could ask him what he was thinking.

Solona didn't think it was a bad idea, either, to be perfectly honest. Alistair would get the power and influence of the throne, with the benefit of Anora's experience. He wouldn't be marrying for love, but what ruler did? It was not as though Alistair would get to marry Ellia, or Morrigan, or some other woman he happened to fall in love with – he did seem to be steeped in female attention of late. This, at least, was a known, loyal Ferelden, who had done an admirable job of governing the nation alongside their last king. He could always have a mistress, someone he loved confide in and spend his leisure time with. Perhaps Ellia could stay on and serve the king? It would not be a bad position for her, either.

 _On the other hand, it would be utterly disgusting_ , Solona reminded herself.

"Ignoring that you look so alarmingly like my late husband," Anora began, addressing Alistair directly, "my main fear is that you would _govern_ like Cailan, as well. But it is true that you have Theirin blood. To some, this is more important than any other consideration. A union might be considered a compromise… if you can assure me that you would not make the same mistakes Cailan made."

Alistair raised a brow. "If I may say so, Your Majesty. Cailan was a good man. I had the privilege of getting to meet him at Ostagar, and the honor of ensuring – along with my fellow warden and our companions – that he got a proper funeral pyre not a week ago. He had a vision for his country, for his army, and for the individual soldiers that served him that would make any father proud. However," he added, holding up a hand as Anora opened her mouth to interrupt him, "he was blinded by the stories of the glory of my order. I, however, know just how human we are. I would not make the same mistakes." Cocking his head to the side, he added, "I have seen enough death to last a lifetime, Your Majesty, and I have been the cause of far too much of it. I would not seek my glory at the end of a sword, as he seemed so eager to do, and as Loghain seems so eager to do, as well. I would seek peace whenever possible."

Her features softened some as Alistair spoke. "You are a strange man… a royal son, born to a commoner. And I a commoner, raised by nobility." Straightening, she turned back to Eamon. "This is a compromise I can live with. And it has the benefit of having both our arguments working to our favor."

Eamon beamed. "I agree. If you are both amenable, then this is the most favorable outcome I could have hoped for." Moving his gaze to Alistair's, who stood near Solona, he asked, "Are you, Alistair? Amenable, that is?"

Alistair looked… tired. "Yes, Eamon. I don't know you, Your Majesty, but I know Cailan loved you. That… has to count for something, right? I believe we can come to care for each other. I _hope_ we can come to care for each other. I do not want to make you unhappy with this arrangement."

Eamon's expression softened. "You will, in time, Alistair. For now, however, we have an agreement? Anora has our support and we have hers, for Alistair on the throne, with Anora to remain as queen?"

Anora nodded. "Agreed."

"Very well. Now, on to the Landsmeet itself…"

* * *

"I _really_ have to use the chamber pot."

Solona was helping Leliana back to their room, which had not yet been used by either of them. A loose robe had been provided to cover the bard while she moved about, which was good, as it would be at least a week before the poor woman would be able to wear regular clothing. Her injuries were not as severe as they could have been – Loghain was very precise with his movements, going for maximum pain but not going so deep that Leliana was in danger of bleeding out before her wounds clotted. Yet because they could not heal her magically until after the Landsmeet, they were left with healing salves and poutlices. Leliana, and Alistair and Elissa, as well, were all in a great deal of pain if they moved too much, leaving the bard having to shuffle so she didn't stretch anything far enough to reopen her wounds.

But the pain she could handle. It was not so bad anymore, not as bad as it had been when Zevran found her, not with the care she had received. In fact, the wounds were beginning to itch, which was maddening in its own right, but a good sign that she was already beginning to mend. No, what concerned her most at this particular moment was more basic than that. She had slept through the day and into the evening, and now she had a desperate need to use the latrine. She was afraid she might not make it, she was so desperate.

Solona snorted a laugh. Leliana pouted as they walked. "What? I have an urgent need, and you _mock_ me?"

Solona shook her head, grinning. "I just wasn't expecting it, Leli."

"Well, _you_ go almost an entire day without using it and see how desperate you become."

"That… is a fair point. Luckily, here we are!" Solona let go of Leliana, indicating the door to their room with a flourish before opening it. Leliana shuffled inside, going straight for the privacy screen in the corner. It was sweet, sweet relief, and she couldn't help but let out a satisfied sigh, prompting another snort from Solona.

When she was through, she hobbled back around, finding Solona with her supplies spread out on the table in the corner. "What are you doing, my love?" she asked, limping to her side and placing her hand on the mage's shoulder.

Solona looked down at her with a smile. "We have to get your bandages off and check on everything. Then we have to get you cleaned up. You're covered in dirt and grime, and your hair is _just_ a fright. Plus," she added, her grin turning lecherous, "it's been an entire day since I've gotten to see you naked…"

Leliana giggled, wrapping her hands around Solona's arm and nuzzling her face into the fabric of the mage's shirt. She turned somber rather quickly as she voiced her next thought. "I would much rather you see me naked than _him_ …" She shuddered.

Solona turned, taking Leliana's arms in her hands as the bard released her. "Hey. Look at me, Leli." Leliana looked up, trying not to cry but feeling the tears rush into her eyes despite her wishes. Solona pulled her into an embrace as the tears spilled forth onto the mage's dirty, bloodied shirt. "I'm so sorry, my love. I couldn't come get you. I sent you into that fire, and you came back bruised and bloodied." In a whisper, she added, "I'm not sure I can ever forgive myself…"

Leliana shook her head before wiping her face on Solona's shirt and looking up into those slate-grey eyes she knew so well. "It was _not_ your fault, Solona. Loghain was the one who did this, not you. _He_ was the one who hurt me, and Alistair, all in his need to keep his country safe from the imagined threat of Orlais. He is deranged, and needs to be stopped. And you will stop him. I know you will."

There was a tightness around the mage's eyes and mouth, but she nodded her agreement nonetheless. "You're right, I will. Arl Eamon informed us that unless every single noble backs us at the Landsmeet – which is highly unlikely – the Regent and Alistair will need to settle the issue through combat. Alistair is mobile, but can hardly fight, so he'll choose a champion – me." Her expression grew hard. "I don't plan on squandering my chance to make my displeasure known."

Leliana smiled. "Good. Just… don't lose sight of why we are doing this. He hurt you personally, but more than that he committed regicide, hobbled the Order of Grey Wardens in Ferelden, and _ensured_ the Blight would wreak havoc for at least this entire year. He must pay for all those crimes. Try to keep that in mind, yes?"

Solona nodded. "I'll try. But honestly, Leliana, those reasons are almost too big. The image of you and Alistair lying bloody before me, however… it's an anger I can use. He hurt me, I hurt him. It's simple, and it will keep me focused."

Leliana buried her face in the mage's shirt once more. "Okay. I can understand that."

"Come. I need to examine your wounds."

Leliana allowed herself to be led to the bed, allowed Solona to remove her robe before gingerly beginning the task of removing all the bandaging. There was so much of it that Leliana barely needed the robe to cover herself. But after being exposed in such a manner, after reliving her torment, the fear of what would come next, she appreciated that she had the freedom to cover herself. That freedom had been taken away from her, and she relished that she had it back. Alistair had broken the nightmare before it truly took hold, but it did not stop her shame, nor did it completely break her fear. It did, however, give her hope, even as knives dug into her flesh, that her torment would end, and that she would see her love again.

And here her love was, undoing the damage Loghain had done. Leliana lay on her stomach when the last bandage came away, allowing Solona an unhindered view. This was one person Leliana could be completely laid bare for and _never_ have to worry about harm coming to her. It had been shameful to be stripped of her clothing against her will. It had filled her with fear. But when Solona did so, it was offered freely, and in return Leliana was treated like a goddess. Being naked in front of Solona was a gift, a way to restore her confidence and to continue to fill her with hope. Hope, and love.

"All right, my love. This looks very good. Now stand up, and I can clean you."

Leliana let Solona help her up, grimacing in pain as the cuts on the backs of her calves stretched farther than she had intended. Leading her over to a bucket of warm water, Solona lifted a sea sponge from the side of the bathtub and began to wash away the dirt, grime, and blood on Leliana's body.

Oh, but it felt divine! Her skin turned alabaster before her very eyes, Solona wiping away the last of the fear and trepidation even as she wiped away the dirt and blood. When she took out Leliana's hair, taking a brush to it, Leliana thought she might just die of bliss. Feeling her lover care for her in this way… she felt warm, and safe, like she was home.

Home…

Leliana was suddenly rocked to her very core. She had never known home before. Perhaps in her early youth, as a small girl with her mother, she had felt she had a home, a safe harbor where no harm could come to her. But not once since then, not like this. She had thought the Lothering Chantry home, but it wasn't truly. Solona, however… Solona was home.

"Home is wherever I am with you," she quoted quietly, remembering the words from a simple song her mother used to sing her. She hadn't thought of the song in a long time. Now, she heard her mother's voice in her head, quietly singing the song to her as she fell asleep.

"I like that," Solona said, pressing a light kiss to the cap of Leliana's shoulder. "What is it?"

Leliana smiled as Solona finished brushing her hair. "It is from a song my mother used to sing to me. I… realized that that is precisely how I feel about _you_."

"Home." Solona came around to face her, a soft smile gracing her lips. "Yes, that is how I feel as well. You are my home."

"And you are mine, my warden," Leliana purred, fisting Solona's shirt in her hands. She didn't voice her request, but it was answered with a light growl. With a flash of her eyes Solona was kissing her, cradling the bard's face with both hands like she was the most precious thing the mage could ever hold. The thought sent a shiver down her spine, and banished all lingering thoughts of the dark times she had endured.

Now was a time for light, and laughter, and reveling in the fact that they had escaped the Lair of the Beast. She would drink from the cup of Solona's love, and be glad that she could do so once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as this chapter, I realize not all questions are answered yet. Just give me some time, and I will, I promise. The two big ones, of course, are why Elissa Cousland was Howe's captive, and what's gonna happen with Riordan. In addition, there's gonna be what happens with Revka. I haven't forgotten, I promise. There's just... a lot of shit to deal with. And I now have all these unwieldy characters that I'm not used to having to juggle all at once. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon.
> 
> On another note, for some reason, this chapter was incredibly hard to write. I probably rewrote the scene with Alistair and Elissa like three times. I had some good stuff, too, but it just wasn't what I wanted to say yet. A word to anyone who's dealing with that - what helps me is hard cider. I drink one of those, and suddenly the creative juices flow. So I apologize to Raven Sinead, because she has to keep deciphering my drunk ramblings...


	57. Aftermath II

The Orlesian warden reappeared that evening. Solona really didn't know what to think of him. Wynne tended to his injuries as he told Solona and Alistair of what he was able to recover from the vault the Grey Wardens kept in the city. Unfortunately, it was not everything that _should_ be there; namely, the prepared darkspawn blood that was used in the Joining ritual was nowhere to be found. It had been a slim hope, but the ability to recruit more Grey Wardens during the winter would have been quite welcome.

Solona's first impression was that Riordan was severe. But then he began to open up to them as he spoke, and she realized he had simply had a harrowing experience in Howe's dungeon and was only now relaxing and recuperating. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, see what he was like after having a few days to relax and heal from his ordeal.

He did promise to take them under his wing, so to speak, and attempt to mentor them as Duncan would have, had their former commander not perished at Ostagar. He approved of Solona taking up the man's weapons, and was very glad they had taken it upon themselves to give their brethren a proper funeral pyre. He seemed to take in stride that Solona was the Warden-Commander, promising to share all he knew of warden lore with her in due time. They had all winter, after all. Most important was that he knew the secret to killing an archdemon, something only Grey Wardens were supposed to be capable of. He would not share it with them now, however, not with Wynne in the room, and not with their incomplete education in the lore of their order.

But for the next few days, at least, he needed time to himself, to recover completely. Besides, the Landsmeet, while important, was not for him. He was of another nation, if not by birth than by loyalty to his order, and must not be seen as involved in this. It would look very bad in the eyes of those whose memories included Orlais' occupation.

The sun had set fully, and supper had come and gone, before Solona had a chance to finally bathe and then check on the Cousland girl. She sent Wynne off to spend time with Zevran before their meeting with the arl later that night, promising to fetch her should she need help in tending to their patient's wounds. But given that the girl was awake and aware, Solona did not think the elder mage's aid would be necessary.

When she entered the room, she found Fergus sitting with his sister, laughing.

"I see I'm missing a little party," Solona quipped, happy to see the two together. "Unfortunately, Fergus, I need to check how your sister is healing."

"Ah, yes, I'll just… I'll leave you two alone," he said, kissing his sister's hand before hurrying out the door.

"I suppose seeing your sister naked isn't what any brother wants," Solona observed, taking the stool Fergus had vacated.

Elissa smiled. "No, I suppose not. It is strange, though, that it matters not among women, even when those women have a preference for other ladies." Elissa gave her a knowing look.

Solona snorted, shaking her head. "Nothing gets past you, does it?"

"You _mock_ me!" Elissa laughed. "As if you and Leliana were hiding your love from _anyone_! As if I _could_ have missed it!"

Sliding her arm under Elissa's shoulders to help her sit up, Solona said, "Given that I woke Leliana with a kiss, I would be very worried if you _did_ miss it." Reaching for the blanket, she paused before pulling it back. "If you don't mind…"

Shaking her head, Elissa gave her permission. "You have already seen all there is to see. I do not think you would take advantage."

Smiling, Solona pulled the blanket back, helping Elissa out of the dirty shift she wore. "Indeed, I would do no such thing. But I hope I do not make you uncomfortable, because if I like the healing I see, then we really should bathe you, as well."

Elissa nodded, displaying very little discomfort at being so exposed. It shouldn't have surprised Solona, she realized, as the girl had likely grown up with servants and handmaidens washing and dressing her.

Her arms and legs had been the focus of Howe's ire, sporting cuts and burns, some so deep they necessitated stitches. However, there was one long gash between the girl's breasts, shallow but still in need of care. It would make wearing clothes easier, though, to have her torso mostly untouched by the knives and irons.

"How _is_ your…"

"Lover?" Solona supplied with a grin, laughing outright at the furious blush that overtook the young woman's pale cheeks. "She is well. Her wounds are healing, and she was feeling well enough for me to wash her before I put her back to bed." That was only partially true. She had _also_ been feeling well enough to engage in some heated kissing before Solona had insisted she go to bed. They could try lovemaking in another few nights, once her wounds were healed enough for Solona to start rubbing oils into them to allow the bard's skin some elasticity. But she didn't mention any of those details to the young Cousland girl. She did not _actually_ wish to make her uncomfortable.

"I must seem dreadfully naïve to you," the girl murmured, averting her eyes as Solona uncovered the gash upon her chest.

Prodding the wound, looking for soreness and checking its color, Solona answered frankly. "I think you are inexperienced, and have been through a harrowing experience. Did he… did he _touch_ you?"

The girl shook her head vehemently. "Not how you mean, no. He… got a handful, I suppose, but the only shame he subjected me to was to cut away my dress." She looked down to her chest. "That's where that one came from."

Solona moved to the bandaging on Elissa's arms. "Why… well, why did he have you? Why were you in that dungeon? Everyone thought you dead, my Lady."

"Elissa, please. If Fergus can be called be his name, then it's only fair I get to be, as well." Solona nodded, smirking. The girl sighed. "I… I was far more valuable to him alive, I'm afraid. He…" She hesitated, casting her gaze down.

"You don't have to go into detail," Solona assured her, pulling dried out poultices away. "We will need to know the details eventually, but you should not have to revisit it so soon if you do not wish to."

She shook her head. "No. I will tell you. But will you… will you spare Fergus the worst details? Just tell him the bare minimum? He doesn't need to know how I was used. It… it involves _him_."

Solona nodded. "I swear. I will spare him what pain I can."

Nodding, sniffling despite dry eyes, Elissa launched into her story, seeming to find her stride after a few halting sentences. As she spoke, her shoulders squared, and her voice became more confident. Clearly, she desperately needed to get it out, and the more she got out, the more confident she became.

"I was sleeping when the attack came. Morganna – my mabari – woke me up, and I went for the weapons I kee- kept in my room. But some of Howe's soldiers broke in before I could properly arm myself. They killed Morganna, though not before she killed one of them, and disarmed me. They didn't bring me to Howe right away, however. They hauled me off to his camp, kept me prisoner for two days before he came to talk to me. I realize now that it was a classic technique to break a prisoner. And it worked. I had no idea what was going on, why his men would attack. They fed and watered me, but I had not bathed in two days, had not spoken to a soul. I was kept in my nightgown, men leering at me openly. I had screamed myself hoarse and was no closer to answers.

"So when my father's best friend from court came into that dark prisoner's tent, I threw myself at his _mercy_." Here, she paused, looking absolutely disgusted with herself. Solona stayed quiet, sponging the girl's body clean.

Taking a deep breath, Elissa plunged on. "He told me that my father…" she swallowed before continuing. "That my father was a traitor, unbeknownst to us. He told me that Father had resisted Howe's attempts at 'peaceful takeover,' and Mother had sided with him – to their deaths. The same for Oriana and Oren – he said they _refused_ to see reason and he was forced to kill them. And I… well, I didn't _believe_ him – how could a six year old be at fault and _need_ to be killed?! But I let him think I believed him. Because there was very little keeping him from killing me if he didn't think I believed him.

"He named himself Teyrn, and declared that I would be his Teyrna when I came of age. But by that point I was already here in Denerim, and other nobles knew I was here. It would be very suspicious were I to suddenly end up dead. So I resisted… at first. Until we learned that Fergus lived, and he promised to deliver my brother's head to me on a platter if I did not agree to marry him. And, Maker forgive me, I agreed. I could not lose my only remaining family. While Fergus lived, there was a chance for resolution, for reclaiming our familial home and getting our vengeance on Howe. And… I was so terribly lonely, and frightened. I… I know what is expected of a wife on her wedding night. And, try as they might, I was not _entirely_ shielded from the dreadful rumors of Howe's cruelty. I feared for myself. With Fergus alive, even should those things come to pass, I had some hope of not being _stuck_. If he were dead, Howe would have me and I would have nowhere else to go, no hope of salvation."

Reaching for her supplies so that she might bandage Elissa's wounds, Solona asked a rather obvious question. "Perhaps this is impertinent of me to point out, but Fergus found you tortured. I'm guessing you stopped cooperating at some point?"

"I stopped cooperating just yesterday, actually," the young Cousland girl said with an almost guilty look. "Try as he might to keep me from any information by locking me in my rooms, Howe could not keep the buzz of the servants away from me. I learned of your arrival, that Fergus Cousland was with the traitorous wardens, and I knew immediately that Howe could not _touch_ him where he was. So I tried to kill Howe the next time he came in the room. Unfortunately, I had not sparred or gotten any other form of exercise in six months. I am weak, and could not knock him unconscious. I succeeded only in giving him a rather angry-looking welt on his head with the candlestick. He… well, I stood my ground, and his answer was to force my cooperation, to force me to marry him. He did not take my refusal well. Hence the torture."

Solona tucked the last bandage into place, her heart hammering in her chest just picturing the things Elissa spoke of. "Elissa… I cannot _imagine_ going through what you went through, at the hands of the man who killed your family. I…"

Elissa placed her hand upon Solona's arm, surprising the mage with a genuine, warm smile. "It is all right, Warden. I have my brother back. Howe is dead. I am free. And you have enabled all of it. Truly, I do not know that I can thank you enough."

Solona smiled, mirroring Elissa's pose with her hand on the girl's arm. "I am more than happy to help. Truly, I wish I could do more, but, alas, until Alistair is on the throne and can protect me from the templars, I am left without my most powerful ability."

The girl furrowed her brows. "Powerful ability? Templars? You are a mage?" She paused, then, "Alistair mentioned something about that, now that I think about it…"

Solona let out a laugh in disbelief. "I forget that you would have no way of knowing… yes. I was raised in the Circle, and was freed by the previous Warden-Commander. Upon Alistair's decision to take the throne should the Landsmeet choose him, he and I agreed that I would be the new Warden-Commander of Ferelden. But my greatest power is my magic. Though, as I said, I cannot use it until I have the protection of the throne. Only then can I seek out my phylactery and destroy it."

"Phylactery? Destroy it? I am afraid I don't understand."

"It's… complicated," Solona explained. "Suffice it to say that templars can detect the use of magic. It is how they track apostates who have escaped the Circle. Having the mage's phylactery helps a great deal – without it, they can sense the use of magic in a certain radius around them, but cannot pinpoint its location. But each mage in the Circle has a phylactery made with his or her blood. So any mage who has spent time in the Circle is traceable. Apostates who have never been in the Circle, and therefore have no phylactery, can be a lot freer in their magic use. Wynne and I both have phylacteries, here in the Denerim Chantry. They're so close… and yet I _cannot_ access mine until I have the king's authority behind me. Even though, as a Grey Warden, I can legally exist outside the Circle."

The girl still looked confused. "Why? If it is perfectly legal for you to be away from the Circle, why can you not walk into the Chantry now?"

Solona sighed, helping the girl secure a robe much like Leliana's about her waist. "Several reasons. The main reason is my visage. I am far darker of skin than most in this country. And this tattoo? It is the mark of an apostate. We are… _branded_ by the Chantry if we ever attempt escape. I would be arrested before I could ever explain my situation, and no one would stop to see if I was allowed out of the Circle, _because no one is allowed out of the Circle_. Especially with the Grey Wardens currently outlawed thanks to Loghain. So I must wait until I have _governmental_ authority behind me before I move to defy _Chantry_ authority."

Settling back upon her pillows, Elissa pondered Solona's words. "That is why you could not go after Leliana and Alistair yourself? You stand out so?" Solona nodded. "I… I am so sorry, Warden," she finally said, placing a hand on Solona's shoulder. "That must have been… insufferable."

Solona began packing up her supplies. "It was. But I have good friends, and they retrieved those of us who had been left behind. And I do not blame your brother. He was in an impossible situation. And he went back to make it right _anyway_. He is a good man. I am so glad you could be returned to each other."

They chatted a bit more, Elissa now completely relaxed. She seemed to trust Solona. Perhaps because Solona simply _listened_ , without judgment or comment. Or perhaps she was a trusting person. Solona didn't know, but she was glad the girl could trust, and smile, and laugh. She was likely to suffer some still – being tortured as she had been was likely to leave some trauma – but hopefully they got her in time to minimize its effects.

* * *

"Should we have heard from Revka today?"

Solona glanced over to Leliana, who stood in her robe looking out the window over the market place.

"I suppose we should have. I hope everything went all right with her parents. The last time they saw me they called the templars, so perhaps not…" Shrugging, she came up behind her lover, wrapping her arms lightly around the bard's waist and resting her chin on the smaller woman's shoulder. "There is nothing to be done until after the Landsmeet, however."

Their musings were cut short when Alistair entered the room, followed in short order by Fergus, Teagan, Wynne, and Zevran. "Will Eamon be joining us?" Solona asked, relinquishing her delicate hold on her lover so they could both join the others in the middle of the room.

Teagan shook his head. "No, Warden. I thought this would be best discussed between us until we have more answers. No need for him to micromanage us; we're all adults, after all. We can manage until we have something more substantial to report to him."

Solona nodded. "Fair enough. So what did you all find yesterday before the mess with the queen?"

Leliana spoke up first. "I spent my time at the Chantry. I learned of a missing templar, who we found in Howe's dungeons. He should be returned to his sister, who is a bann, by now."

"That would be Alfstanna's brother," Teagan said with a nod. "The word is that he returned to her in the night, half-mad and tortured. Bann Sighard of Dragon's Peak also had someone precious returned to him – his son. Apparently Howe had quite a few precious treasures locked away in his dungeons."

"Fergus's sister, a bann's brother who was chasing the man Loghain convinced to poison Eamon, _another_ bann's son, imprisoning the queen…" Alistair shook his head. "The amount of trouble he has caused is _astounding_."

"And that is not all," Zevran said, calling all their attention to his still-hairless visage. "This uprising in the alienage… it smacks of faslehoods. It bears further investigation."

"I heard there's some kind of plague," Alistair mentioned. "While I was lurking about the marketplace yesterday."

"A plague… Yes, somebody mentioned something about an 'elven sickness,'" Zevran murmured, curling his fingers around the last words. "This must be what they meant." Straightening, dropping his arms to the side, he continued, his gaze locked on Solona's. "I would go investigate the alienage, see what can be learned. The elves have some part to play in this. It is their city, too."

"They are just elves," Teagan countered, brows furrowed. Immediately, all eyes in the room turned on him, glowering under brows knit in anger. "I just mean that I don't see what importance they play in all of this."

It was Alistair who answered. "Teagan, how can we ever know if we don't go find out?" Crossing his arms over his chest, he continued. "The elves have been downtrodden far too long. They are my subjects, just like any other man – or, at least, they will be. Men took away their home, enslaved them, raped them, killed them… all because they are different. Even if all that can be done is to confirm this plague, they deserve more than to simply be shut out from the rest of the city." Turning, he addressed Zevran. "Go do your wall-climbing thing and see what you can find out."

Zevran smirked. "Already the king, I see. I would also bring Natia, if she is amenable. She is faster and quieter than she looks. And we cannot bring humans into the alienage – their faces would be highly unwelcome… and none of you can climb the walls, anyway," he added with a wink.

Solona chuckled, shaking her head. "Go find out what you can, Zevran. We will await your return."

Nodding, a grin on his face, the elf left, the rest of them filtering out and heading off to bed.

* * *

The next morning, Solona sought out Fergus. She found him down in the armory, going through weapons with Alistair, laughing at some joke or other her fellow warden had made.

"What are you two laughing about?"

"Solona! Here you are, to help us decide!" Fergus responded, striding over to her side with a blade in each hand. "Which should I choose for my sister? She is so much smaller than I that I am afraid I cannot decide which sword would work best for her."

Solona raised a brow. "A sword for your sister? Why not let her choose?"

"Fergus wants it to be a surprise. Have the blacksmith smart it up and make a special sheath for it," Alistair answered, coming over to them with another sword in-hand.

"A gift? Well… Let me see." She took one of the swords and hefted it. "I do not know that this one would be good for her. It is too long for her reach, and the handle is much too large for her hands. In fact," she said as she glanced at the other swords, "the handles on all of these are too large for your sister, Fergus. Unless she wields a bastard sword?"

Fergus sighed, shaking his head as he took the weapon from her again. "No, she does not. She is strong, but those are for giants like your qunari warrior."

"I suppose she could use a longsword as a hand-and-a-half," Alistair mused, scratching the stubble growing in on his chin.

"She fights with sword and shield, Alistair. Like you and I."

"You should take her to the armory when she is able to regain her feet," Solona suggested. "Have a surprise for her when she's feeling better. It won't be made yet, but she can have it custom-made. You can put the Cousland crest upon it and everything."

Fergus scrubbed a hand over his hair. "I suppose that's all there is for it. Maybe the blacksmith can _start_ at least… I'll see what he would need." Looking up, he looked questioningly at Solona. "Did you need something?"

Solona's heart immediately sank into her gut. "I… spoke to your sister last night. About Howe."

"She told you?" He looked almost hurt. "Why would she tell you and not me? You did not interrogate her, did you?"

Solona held up her hands. "I was not rough, Fergus. I merely gently _prodded_ as to why she'd been Howe's prisoner, and she told me. I do not think she would have told you the same. She… was very concerned that I spare you the more gruesome details."

Fergus scowled. "You will tell me what happened to my sister, Solona."

"Fergus, calm down," Alistair soothed. "Would you really want to hear it all straight from your sister's mouth? Think of _all_ she might have to say."

Fergus looked at him hard before sighing, folding his arms over his chest. "As you say. But I would still hear what she had to say." It was most definitely not a request.

Solona explained what she could, making her report as factual as possible, leaving out how it made Elissa feel. She did not think Fergus needed to know how she was frightened for her maidenhood, or how she felt like a bloody _idiot_ now that she had the benefit of knowing how it would all turn out. Solona merely told the story as she knew it, explaining that Elissa was blackmailed into cooperation with the threat that Fergus would die if she did not.

"So when she learned that I was alive, and could not be harmed, she resisted cooperation?"

Solona nodded. "Aye, she did. And that is what landed her in the dungeons. I think Howe knew that he no longer had any bargaining chips once he saw you."

"He was right," Fergus said darkly. "If you'll excuse me, I need to go speak with my sister. The poor girl."

Solona and Alistair both watched Fergus exit the armory, their eyes snapping to each other as he moved out of sight.

"He has his revenge, and his sister. Do you think he'll be as volatile as he was before he killed Howe?"

Alistair shook his head. "I think he is already mellowing. He has a temper in him, as well as the need to make jokes and laugh loudly. It will be frustrating – quick to anger _and_ quick to laughter – but it is a quality shared among good leaders. Yourself included," he said with a pointed look. Solona just chuckled. He was right, of course. "I think Howe was the first time he ever had to wait any length of time to act on his anger. Hopefully that will temper him, make him learn some patience."

Solona smirked. "Spoken like someone wise beyond his years."

Alistair blushed. "I… _might_ be paraphrasing Wynne …"

"Come, Alistair," Solona said, clapping him on the shoulder as they both laughed. "Let us take advantage of the grand meals they serve us here and eat our weight in bacon and buttered biscuits with honey, shall we?"

"That sounds… _amazing_ ," he breathed, following her lead out the door and toward the kitchens.

* * *

Zevran and Natia returned almost as soon as the sun set that night, exhausted and covered in dirt, their clothing torn and stained with mud. They were unharmed, however, much to a worried Wynne's relief.

"I am fine, my love," Zevran murmured, taking her hands in his and walking with her to Solona's side.

"The look on your face tells me I will not like what you found," Solona stated, placing her wine back upon the table. They had just sat down to supper when a guard came running in announcing the elf's return to the room. Zevran and Natia had followed almost upon the guard's heel.

"You won't," Natia replied, grim-faced. "He was selling the elves as slaves to fund Loghain's army."

Alistair spit the wine he had just sipped, spluttering as he shouted in disbelief. "What?!"

"It is true," Zevran replied, turning to Arl Eamon, who shared his table with the wardens and their companions.

"What _exactly_ did you find?" the arl queried, placing his food back upon the table. Even Solona lost her appetite with this news.

In answer, Natia produced a satchel, pulling from it a sheaf of parchments. "Detailed notes on the sales, your Grace."

"How… tell us what happened," Solona interjected, eyebrows knit as she caught Natia's gaze. "It's _got_ to be a remarkable story…"

The dwarf snorted. "You can say _that_ again, _salroka_. There were Tevinter mages."

Solona just blinked rapidly for a moment before she responded. " _What_?"

Zevran smirked. "Allow me to elaborate, Warden. Firstly, when we got there, we met a _spritely_ young elf who demanded to know who we were. Claimed she knew everyone in the alienage, and I was not one of them. Truly, had I been free to, I might have taken her to my bed that very moment, she was so fiery, her bosom so-"

"Zevran," Wynne said sternly, drawing more than one quickly hushed snicker from the group. "I think the arl can live without your description of every young maiden's _bosom_."

"Right you are, my love," he said, never breaking his stride. "As I said, this young maiden told us about the farce that was the supposed plague, about how the men from Tevinter were allowed in because they claimed to be able to study the sickness and cure it with their healing magic."

Wynne stopped him, a hand on his shoulder. "You mean there _was_ no plague?"

Zevran shook his head. "No. A few people got a runny nose and a cough, and these they used to concoct the fiction of a plague. They were the first to go, and then every person who even _sneezed_ was taken, 'quarantined' for the good of everyone else."

"At which point, they were sold to slavers," Natia finished for him, reaching over and taking Solona's cup of wine and draining it before she continued. "The damn Magister was pocketing half the profit, the other half going straight to lining Loghain's purse. I hope he has some mighty fine equipment for his soldiers, because far too many people were taken, and we'll never get them back now."

Alistair shook his head. "It explains why no one cared about the use of magic in Howe's dungeon. If those mages had no phylactery, then their magic would not be distinguishable by the templars from the magic wielded by the Magister in the alienage. And since the Magister was here legally, ostensibly to cure this plague…"

"Then they would ignore the use of magic, as they would assume it was sanctioned, in this one instance," Solona finished for him, narrowing her eyes. Catching Wynne's gaze, she added, "And yet we still cannot use our Maker-given gifts because we _do_ have phylacteries, right here in Denrim." She sighed. "So close, I can practically taste them…"

"I take it the Magister is no longer a problem?" Teagan finally broke his silence.

Zevran smirked. "I have been sparring with an arcane warrior for months, ser. He was hardly a challenge, too used to people cowering before his powers. I had him by the throat in less than a minute. Natia retrieved the documents from his belt, and then he was dead; the elves we had intercepted before shipment freed. Their village elder is free, as are the family members of that fiery young woman I spoke of. And here, we have the proof we needed of the worst of Loghain's crimes."

"Indeed we do," Eamon said, lifting his eyes from the parchment. "How you managed to get something with both Loghain and Howe's signature on it, I'll never know. But this incriminates Loghain like nothing else we have yet found. This is sure to discredit him. The idea that elves are a proud, capable people in their own right is not a popular one, but the idea of selling them as slaves is even less so." He turned to Teagan, handing over the documents. "Put this in the chest, and keep the key on you at all times. These are _not_ to be lost, my brother."

"It is done," Teagan replied, taking the documents and leaving the room at once.

"If I might make a suggestion, your Grace," Leliana spoke up, ending her quiet, contemplative sttention of the last quarter-hour. "Do not let the servants who are in this room at this moment leave the estate. Better yet, do not let them talk to anyone who might leave the estate, not until the Landsmeet. We do not want this secret leaking out and getting to our enemies."

Eamon looked around, spying several elven servants. "You are right, my Lady." Addressing his servants, he said, "I know you would seek to spread this news, to blacken Loghain's name and seek what revenge you can for this crime against your brethren. But I ask that you hold off, that you allow us to use this against him at the Landsmeet, where we can unseat him and place Alistair on the throne instead."

The three servants' eyes turned to Alistair, and in them Solona saw that they knew he was a man who was friendly to their people. They knew of his tryst with Ellia, of his unpopular ideas that the elves were still people of this kingdom, and that he would seek to do what he could to lift their people from the gutters. Almost as one, the three elves nodded, turning back to their arl and curtseying or bowing as their gender dictated, "Yes, your Grace," murmured by all.

He smiled. "Thank you." Turning back to those at the table, he sighed. "Okay, everyone. Let's strategize."

Solona barely kept from rolling her eyes. This was going to be a long night…


	58. The Calm Before The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahem. There is smut here. No Landsmeet yet. Just smut. Can you forgive me?

Morrigan returned two nights before the Landsmeet, tired and cold and irritable.

"So… like she always is, then?" Alistair had quipped, earning both a smirk and a smack from Solona, who had been the recipient of the witch's ire when she first returned. She would not speak of what she had done or where she had been, but both Alistair and Solona knew that Morrigan had taken her mother's grimmoire with her out into the woods. Who knew what was written therein?

Alistair now wandered the estate, restless, trying to keep his mind off the next day, when they would confront Loghain in front of all the nobles of Ferelden and then hopefully Alistair would gain the throne. It would also be the day they announced his impending wedding to Anora, whom he had spent absolutely no time with, as she had been holed up in her rooms except for meals and meetings. He wasn't sure how they were supposed to be married, to come to care for each other, if they never spent any time together. But really, he knew very little about how nobles did things. He was a simple stable boy at heart, and putting a crown on his head and stating that he was king would do very little to change his humble beginnings.

His wounds were healing nicely, though they itched something awful now. Honestly, despite the weather getting colder, he wished he could walk around shirtless like he did at camp just so the fabric of his homespun tunics – or worse, the frilly, fancy shit Eamon insisted he needed to start wearing in front of other nobles – didn't brush against the healing scabs and cause incurable itching. But he managed. He actually found that tighter clothing worked better, as it moved with him instead of in opposition to him. And each day was better; less pain, more flexibility.

He still could not spar, however. Neither could Leliana, nor Elissa. They were all not yet healed enough. He had sat in on Solona and Fergus sparring, though, egging them on, cheering for Solona as her swordplay got better and better. As Solona could not do the meditation that she so hated – and yet which had quickly become part of her necessary daily routines – this was the only thing left to her. That, and her private time with Leliana, which he suspected did a whole lot more to take the edge off her restlessness. Alistair had neither. He merely ate, slept, and paced the estate, occasionally enjoying a game of tug with Max when the mabari sought him out for play.

Pacing was what he was doing now, prowling the halls, trying to work off his nervous energy. He was used to walking or riding all day, sparring in the evening, and then sitting watch for two hours most nights. Not to mention sleeping on a mere bedroll upon the ground. Even though some of his energy went toward healing his wounds… he was restless.

"You look like a mabari kept indoors too long," a soft, feminine voice called out. Alistair's head jerked up toward the sound, and he saw Elissa Cousland standing at the door to her brother's room, a soft smile on her face. Her dark brown hair was done in a simple yet elegant braid similar to Leliana's usual fare. The sun streamed in through the windows, showing that her skin was a healthy tan when not pale from the stress of being tortured. She stood in a beautiful yet simple dress, her arms and legs covered completely. He supposed it shouldn't surprise him – women tended to be a lot more self-conscious about scars. And she was going to have _many_ scars after her treatment at Howe's hands.

He was suddenly very angry about that, remembering the story Solona had told them. But it fizzled out quickly as Elissa stepped from the doorway, her hand out slightly. He realized as she stepped into the hallway that it was in response to his own hand now held in front of him, of its own volition, and then her hand was in his, and he was bending at the waist to whisper a kiss across her knuckles. Her skin was warm, soft, and smelled of honeysuckle. As it was pulled out of his hand, he felt the ghosts of calluses from the swordplay she had not been allowed to partake in since her parents' deaths. He suddenly very much wanted to see her spar.

"My Lady," he greeted as he straightened again. "You are entirely accurate – I _feel_ like a caged mabari."

"Well, perhaps you could escort me through the gardens? I, too, am feeling restless, but unfortunately I am not yet healed enough to do anything more than walk the grounds. And as we cannot leave the estate until after the Landsmeet…"

Alistair smiled, offering her his arm. "I would be honored, my Lady."

She giggled as she slid her hand into the crook of his arm. "So formal, your Highness!"

He groaned. "Maker, don't call me that! I'm not king _yet_."

"But you will be," she countered, her lips pulled up in a half-smile.

He looked down at her. She was taller than most of the women he knew, coming roughly up to his eyes. He… liked it. "But I'm not king _yet_. Can't I have one or two more days of blissful irresponsibility before it all comes crashing in? Barring that, can I just have _tonight_?"

She giggled, a light sound that reminded him of chimes in the breeze for some unknown reason. "Very well, _Alistair_." There it was again. His name, said in that way, by those lips. A week had not dimmed his fascination. "As long as you use my name, as well. I am hardly a lady here. I am a guest with nothing to my name."

"Just like me," Alistair said with a smile. "I can certainly call you by your name if that is all right with you, but I disagree that you aren't a lady." Spying Solona walking through the great hall through which they passed, a man's hose and vest and heavy boots her chosen adornment for the day, he added, "Now _Solona_ , she isn't a lady. At least not most of the time."

"Hey! I heard that, Alistair!" Solona shouted, turning and walking backwards as she addressed him. "Prig!"

He just laughed as she turned and continued in whatever chore she was on, offering him a rude gesture as she went. "My point exactly."

"I have done worse to my brother, I assure you," Elissa countered. "A little girl is not concerned with being a lady when she dumps manure in her older brother's shoes, trust me."

He gaped for a moment. "Manure?! In his _shoes_?!"

"Yes!" she laughed, nodding. "They were nice shoes, too. Given to him by his bride-to-be to wear at their engagement fete. Thank the Maker she had a sense of humor on par with ours, and was not offended when he did not wear them."

"Indeed," Alistair said, a little incredulous still. "Wait… you said you were a little girl? How old was he when he got married? And you?"

"Seventeen," Elissa answered, blinking rapidly as they stepped out into the sun. "Or, he was seventeen when he came back from Antiva with plans to propose to her. I was ten. They married shortly after he was of-age, and she bore Oren a year later. My nephew had just turned six when they…"

Alistair rushed to divert her. "It's okay, you don't need to talk about it if you don't want to…"

She shook her head, wiping a tear from her eye. "It's all right. I… I have become accustomed to not speaking of it, but I think maybe I need to. But I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable…"

Alistair smiled, he hoped kindly, and placed his free hand on hers, tucked into his elbow. "Please, Elissa. I have lost someone close to me, as well. And while I do not claim to have lost so many all at once, still I know that it is far better to speak through the pain, even if the tears come while you do, than it is to bottle it up and treat it as though it never happened." He thought back to losing Duncan, and how not having anyone sympathetic to him had made it so much worse.

Sniffing slightly, Elissa nodded. Suddenly, she let go of his arm, pushing it out of the way as she buried her face in his shoulder. Her body shuddered as he instinctively wrapped his arms around her. The first sob came, and he realized that she was finally mourning her family, that she could not stem the tide of her loss any longer, not after everything that had happened. So he let her cry. She had been holding it back for too long, by necessity. But that need was gone with Howe's life, and now that she was safely away from her captor, she could finally release all the pent-up rage and fear, the grief for her parents and her brother's wife and son. She needed this, and he felt oddly honored that she would do so with him, someone she had only known for a few days and only had a handful of light conversations with.

Holding her, letting her tears soak his tunic, he vowed not to break that trust, not after everything she had been through. He liked it, liked how she felt, liked that she _could_ trust him, unlike Morrigan, who he had fallen for against all advice, and who had quietly crushed his heart under her boot heel. It made him feel good, to hold Elissa and care for her, and suddenly he saw what it was that Solona and Leliana _really_ had in each other. He never saw either of them at their weakest, when they wept, because they had each other's arms in which to weep. And he envied them even more now that he knew precisely what he was missing.

* * *

"Really, I am all right, Alistair," Elissa said, her eyes dry now. Honestly, she had been mortified to lose control like that with him, and yet she could not help it. She was trying to be strong for Fergus, who was so guilty for the pain she had been through on his account. She could talk to Solona but could not seem to let herself go with her. She had not spent any notable length of time alone with anyone else. So when Alistair had expressed such compassion about her loss, about the experience she had gone through, a crack in her defenses had quickly widened, and the deluge had come pouring through. All she could do at that point was ride it out.

And he had merely held her, letting her soak his shirt with her tears. He felt good: solid, strong, warm. He felt immovable, like he could stand there and hold her as long as she needed. Which was exactly what he did. And then they had continued their walk like nothing unmentionable had happened, strolling through the gardens covered in snow, commenting on how the plants didn't seem to yet know it was winter as they were green yet draped in snow from that morning's snowfall. It had been pleasant, comfortable. He was funny, telling good and bad jokes alike. She liked his smile. He looked a little strange with his hair growing in as it was, but given that he had lost all of it fighting a dragon… well. Elissa supposed she could give him the benefit of the doubt until he had more than stubble upon his head and face. If he looked anything like Cailan, then he promised to be quite handsome, indeed.

Now, however, their walk was over. The sun was setting, and it was time for supper. Only, she had to change her skirts, as they were soaked from the snow melting upon them. Oh, how she wished sometimes that she could comfortably move through the estate dressed as a man, as Solona and Leliana both did. Leliana even managed it with a feminine grace, like she was moving in the finest of silk gowns. Elissa had no idea how she managed it. She herself liked to wear trousers and tunics, but she always felt awkward in them when in mixed company. Truly, the only person she didn't feel awkward around most of the time – trousers or dress – was Fergus.

And now, possibly Alistair. Who could feel awkward around _him_? He was just so humble and adorable.

"Are you sure? I could wait while you change, escort you to dinner?"

She giggled. "It is just supper, Alistair! I do not need to be escorted to something so informal."

His face flushed a little, making Elissa want to hug him to her. "I… I suppose I make my common origins rather obvious, don't I?"

Placing a hand on his arm, she smiled warmly. "Not so much as you're worried you do. You will have people to instruct you once you are on the throne. Until then… no, a lady has no need of escort to an informal meal. But I have enjoyed spending time with you, and would love to do so again. Would you walk with me again sometime? I have taken to wandering the garden with Max. I've seen you playing with him. Perhaps you would join us?"

He smiled, mirroring her own. "I would love to, Elissa. See you in a little while?"

She nodded. "Yes, I will see you at supper." Turning, she headed to the room she had been given, stripping out of her day dress and changing it for something more appropriate for the evening. It was not a formal event, but she was still dining with the arl, who was gracious enough to host herself and Fergus at least until they could claim their own small estate in the city. Even when they were able, it was unlikely they would be able to live there – they had no staff, no funds, and no men-at-arms. They would likely be wintering with Eamon.

Or, perhaps at the palace, with Alistair? The thought pleased her far more than it should.

Exiting her room in her simple evening gown, Elissa made her way to the dining room. On the way, however, she found Alistair, speaking to the redheaded elf girl who seemed to have been assigned to his party. Stopping just out of sight, Elissa couldn't help but watch. She didn't wish to disturb their discussion, but… she was also curious. Whatever they spoke of, it was clear they were having some kind of argument. The girl was shaking her head, her expression stern. Alistair looked to be pleading about something.

"Ah, the elven harlot."

Elissa practically jumped, turning to find the strange woman who had returned from the woods the day before. She had raven hair, pinned up in a slightly messy bun that still looked incredibly elegant. Her features were striking, with a straight nose, delicate, full lips, and piercing yellow eyes, like a cat's. She wore a strange conglomeration of leather and linen skirts, her shirt clearly a sleeveless man's tunic that had been taken in to accommodate her smaller, more voluptuous frame. It all came together in a thoroughly wild, exotic way. This woman was a tantalizing beauty, one who likely knew very little of the workings of state – and her lack of concern for those things made her all the more alluring.

"Pardon?" Elissa managed, finding it curious that such a powerful woman, with such a commanding presence, would actually be _shorter_ than she herself was.

The woman raised a single brow, her expression still that of someone who smelled something unpleasant wafting through the air. "I was merely noting that Alistair was again speaking with the elven harlot whom he took to his bed in Redcliffe. Apparently he cannot even keep a _servant_ interested in him, given how they bicker."

"His… bed?" Was Alistair that kind of man? He treated noble ladies well, but did he bully the servants to sleep with him? Usually, men who preferred elves were… distasteful, to say the least. It was all about power, those men liking that they could _make_ an elf go to their bed.

What was it her father had said so many times? " _Measure a man by how he treats those lower than him, not by how he treats his equals or his betters."_ Elissa whirled around again to watch the argument taking place. Alistair did not lay a hand upon the elf, and after a moment, the elven girl turned and walked away, leaving a thoroughly dejected looking Alistair standing there, his arms hanging uselessly at his sides.

"Do you see? He cannot even muster the backbone to tell that girl what he thinks, nor to command her to stay in his presence. Imagine, a man like that, having the power of the throne?"

"It is better than forcing someone with no power to kneel for fear of punishment," Elissa breathed, somehow relieved. Turning once more, she studied the figure before her for a moment before taking up her skirts and curtseying. "Forgive me, Lady. We have not yet been introduced. I am Lady Elissa Cousland. And you are?"

The woman furrowed her brows for a moment before simply walking right past Elissa. She halted in front of Alistair, exchanging a few words before gesturing with a nod of her head toward Elissa and continuing on. Alistair looked her way, concern etched in his features. Elissa ducked out of the way, her heart racing for a moment. Whatever else the argument he'd been having was, it was private, and she had been eavesdropping like a little girl. She had learned her lesson about looking where she shouldn't when she learned what it was Fergus and Oriana did alone in their rooms so often right after they got married. She should know better now.

Hearing Alistair's boots upon the flagstone, heading in her direction, Elissa panicked and ran, disappearing up the stairs and into her room. She could eat later. There was no way she could face Alistair right now, after having been caught.

As she caught her breath, it became clear to her that, whatever else might be true of that raven-haired woman, the distaste with which the others spoke of her was clearly _earned_.

* * *

Leliana lay on her stomach, a pillow under her belly to keep her breasts from pressing uncomfortably into the bed. She was completely naked, her skin dimpling slightly as the winter air tried to combat the warmth from the fire.

"You look _delicious_ like this," Solona murmured, her fingertips tracing from Leliana's shoulders to the small of her back, making the bard shiver. Then Solona's warm hands were on her, spreading oil over the scabbed knife wounds upon her back.

"I look delicious, even with all of the damage?" The bard tried to keep it light, but she wasn't feeling particularly attractive. And it didn't help that they had not been intimate since before her body had been mangled in such a spectacular fashion.

Solona stopped what she was doing for a moment. The mattress moved with her weight, and then the mage's lips were next to Leliana's ear, her hot breath whispering over her neck. "Yes, my love. Even _with_ the damage. You are… _utterly_ delectable. It has been a study in patience to keep from ravishing you at every opportunity."

Shivering at every wash of her lover's breath, feeling her core already beginning to pound with blood, Leliana tried to keep the petulance from her voice. "Then why have you not yet touched me?"

"Oh, my poor Leli," Solona breathed, kissing Leliana softly at the nape of her neck. "Feeling neglected-" kiss "- forgotten-" her tongue flicked out "- _randy_." Her mouth disappeared, her hands taking back up their soft massaging of oil into Leliana's back. "I do apologize for that, my love," Solona said, speaking over Leliana's whimper of protest. "I just want you healthy and whole again. Besides… waiting was never the _worst_ thing in the world, was it?"

"Hmph," Leliana grumped, suppressing another shiver at the feel of her lover's hands upon her. "As if you have ever had to wait," she complained, knowing she was being immature, but unable to help it. Solona's hands on her skin were _divine_ , and she already wanted them inside of her.

She could _hear_ the smirk in Solona's voice. "No?" The mage's hands disappeared for a moment, reappearing coated in more oil upon the backs of the bard's legs. "So all those weeks before we ever had sex… what were those? I had this beautiful woman in my arms, kissing me and moving against me, sleeping on me, making me feel… desired, wanted. _Good_. And yet it was best to wait, to make sure you were ready. That is all we are doing now, Leli." Her tone was… teasing.

"But I _am_ ready!" Leliana protested.

Solona chuckled, her hands moving up to Leliana's buttocks. "Are you now?" Her hands gripped the bard's backside firmly for a moment, Leliana letting out a little yelp of surprise, before she let go and swatted the bard with both hands, the slap resounding in the quiet room.

"Solona!"

"Shhh," Solona cooed, her hands on Leliana again, her nails raking lightly from Leliana's shoulders to her bottom. She was careful, making sure not to catch on any wounds. The treatment soon had Leliana wound very tight, given how extra-sensitive her skin was at the moment, with healing wounds crisscrossed over her. Just as she thought she might burst from the treatment, Solona's hands sought out her sex, gently spreading her knees and pushing inside of her.

"Oh," Leliana sighed, relaxing even as her abdominal muscles tensed.

"Do you like that, my love? Is that what you've been wanting?"

"Maker, _yes_ ," she replied, almost pleading, though for what she wasn't sure. More? Faster? Slower? She certainly wished Solona would touch more of her, but given that she was covered in oil, and that Solona was fully clothed, she knew why that wouldn't be happening.

"You wanted me inside of you? Finding all those places that make you _squeal_?" Solona pushed down, finding that sweet ridge inside of the bard that never failed to make Leliana wriggle and cry out. And she did just that, her eyes closing as she buried her fingers in the bedding.

"Now, now, Leli," Solona admonished, her free hand pushing on Leliana's knees, one after the other, opening her legs back up. "You must stay open for me, my love. Otherwise, how can I continue?" She emphasized her meaning with another soft jab to that spot inside of the bard.

"Sweet Maker!" Leliana panted.

Solona's efforts were soon joined by her free hand, finding that bundle of nerves and circling it expertly. Leliana felt full, like she was an instrument being played by an expert. She… she truly had no words for how she felt. She only knew that she never wanted Solona to stop. Never, ever did she want this feeling to reach its conclusion, even if it would provide sweet, sweet relief to the ache swiftly building inside of her.

But it did. It had been long enough since they'd made love that Leliana's climax came over her within a short minute or two, the feeling like a swelling wave that finally breaks. The pleasure washed over her like the waves lapping at the shore, and it was with shaky breaths that she finally collapsed, her body utterly relaxed and boneless, her fingers finally releasing their hold on the blanket.

Solona stayed buried in her, her free hand moving to cup Leliana's sex. After a few moments, however, she withdrew, much to Leliana's displeasure. The bard whimpered in protest once more, mustering the energy to turn her head enough to see where the mage went. She smiled at what she saw.

Solona was adding wood to the fire that kept their room warm in the winter's cold, using a poker to move the coals around. She then washed her hands in the basin before stripping. She returned to bed, utterly naked, a light linen nightgown in her hands.

"Come, my love. Best not to ruin the sheets with all that oil, yes?"

Leliana smiled, nodding once before she allowed Solona to help her out of bed. She lifted her arms, letting Solona pull the nightgown over her head. It was light, loose, and yet because it stuck to the oil on her skin, almost obscene. Though given what they'd just done, obscene was hardly a problem.

Solona moved to the bedside, pulling the covers back for her lover. But Leliana had… other ideas. Slinking her way to Solona's side, smiling coyly while watching Solona watch her, she placed her hands on the mage's chest, caressing her breasts. Moving the pads of her fingers down Solona's sides, she looked up, knowing that look generally made a person weak in the knees. Flicking out her tongue, she ran it along her lover's collarbone, down between the valley of her breasts, and up onto one peak. Grinning at Solona's hiss, she took the nipple into her mouth.

Laving it with her tongue, sucking sharply every few seconds, she continued her exploration with her hands, tracing the delicate outline of hard muscle under the mage's warm, soft skin. Solona had let the blankets fall by now and was resting her hands lightly on Leliana's shoulders. When Leliana moved from one breast to the other, her hands moved to bury in the bard's hair, holding her lightly in place as the mage swore under her breath. Leliana looked up from her stooped position, making eye contact immediately. The look on Solona's face was one of pure concentration, desire swirling her pupils to take up nearly all of the slate-grey of her eyes.

Releasing her breast, Leliana fully knelt, keeping her eyes on her lover's. Solona was speechless, her mouth open with no words coming out. She was completely naked, muscles standing out in the half-light of the room, tensed from reining in her desire. Leliana took her hips in-hand, pushing lightly. When Solona did not respond, she dug her fingers in a little, getting the mage's attention.

"Will I have to tie you down to get you to do what I want, love?"

Solona's eyes closed and she let her head fall back for a moment, before obeying and sitting down upon the bed. Her fingers were still threaded into Leliana's hair, a soft weight that pulled Leliana's head closer unintentionally. Leliana did not mind, however, as the mage's sex was her goal anyhow. Solona's knees had parted of their own accord, showing Leliana a tantalizing view of the prize she had been robbed of for a week. Pulling apart the dark hair there like curtains over a window, she pushed forward, probing with her tongue.

Solona's tangy taste exploded in her mouth, the mage letting out a cry of surprised pleasure. Leliana did not waste any time, immediately treating the bundle of nerves like Solona's nipples and sucking it into her mouth. Her fingers probed further, filling the mage with three of her small fingers right at the start. She rocked in and out, enjoying the feeling of Solona's fingers gently massaging her scalp as she tried to remain sitting up.

Suddenly the mage tensed, and then she was climaxing, her legs clamping down over Leliana's ears, her knees up over the bard's shoulders. Leliana's fingers were coating in fluid even as the mage's inner muscles also clamped down upon them, and it was all the bard could do to keep laving at Solona's hard bundle of nerves with her tongue.

It only lasted a few moments, however, Solona suddenly relaxing with a blast of air in Leliana's face. Leliana left her hand in place but raised her head, meeting Solona's forehead with her own before the mage pulled her further up for a kiss. It was wet and languid, Solona's mouth cool from panting open-mouthed through Leliana's exertions, and she lapped up her own fluids on Leliana's mouth eagerly. Smiling, Leliana removed her hand from Solona's core, pushing up further, laying Solona out on the bed and draping herself over the mage.

"See what you were missing, my love?" she murmured, tracing lazy patterns on the mage's skin with still-wet fingers. "It has been so long that you came in minutes only!"

Solona just chuckled faintly. "You came rather quickly yourself, Leli."

"I know. Because you made me wait so long."

Leliana rose and fell lightly with Solona's sigh. "I did not do it to be cruel. I wanted to make sure you were ready. And if you wanted it that badly, then you were ready."

Leliana knit her brows, lifting her head to look down upon her lover. "Why wouldn't I be ready?"

Solona sighed again, looking away for a moment before making eye contact once more. "When we first met, we waited to make sure you were ready, as well, right?"

Leliana nodded. "Yes. Because I had not been with anyone since Orlais and the chevaliers."

Solona nodded. "Yes. Because you had been tortured, and more. You were not raped by Loghain, thank the Maker and Andraste and all the angels in the heavens. But still, I did not want our time together to remind you in any way of _that_ time. Loghain doesn't deserve to take that away from us. I wanted some time to pass, for you to feel completely comfortable again. If you were in pain, it would remind you of _why_. If you remembered why, then you would remember what you were so afraid of happening to you _again_ , because it had already happened before." Pausing, she finished with, "I did not want our lovemaking to remind you of being raped. You are… you are too precious to me to put you through that by not being willing to wait for my own pleasure."

Leliana was quiet for a moment, merely studying Solona's features as she processed all the mage had said. Then, she pushed herself up, pulling the Solona's face toward hers and kissing her almost brutally, ignoring the slight pain such movements caused her.

Pulling back, panting, she said, "You are the most wonderful person I could have ever asked for. Tomorrow, you are Ferelden's. You will put a king on the throne, defeat Loghain and get vengeance for your brethren, and begin preparing the realm for the fight against the Blight. You will be at Ferelden's service. But tonight, my love," she finished, practically purring as she hauled herself up to straddle the mage's hips, her hands tickling along Solona's ribs as the mage's hands grasped at her hips. "Tonight, you are mine. And I do not plan to waste a _second_ of that time."


	59. The Landsmeet

The march to the palace was nerve-wracking. Mostly because they were all in the nicest clothing they'd ever worn, which continually reminded all of them what was coming. They did strike handsome figures in silk dresses for the ladies and silk jerkins and the finest linens for the men… and Solona. She couldn't very well fight as Alistair's champion in a dress! She also couldn't stand dresses. She had not worn one since before she went to the Circle, and she did not intend to start now.

_"Robes are not dresses!" she nearly shouts at a smirking Zevran. "Ask Wynne! They are free-flowing and lack a corset. And I always wore hose underneath them."_

_"It is true, dear," Wynne says, a hand on his shoulder. "You have seen the difference for yourself."_

_"This is true!" The elf turns, taking Wynne into his arms. "The robes are so much easier to remove than the fine dresses!"_

_Solona pantomimes puking. "Please. No more…"_

Solona grinned at the memory from that morning as she rode alongside Alistair.

Her party actually followed in Eamon's wake, rather than entering right alongside him. They wanted to present the image that Alistair, while Eamon's choice, was not his lackey, and so he was to lead his party of Grey Wardens – all two of them – and their companions into the Landsmeet. They could take care of themselves, but even still, Eamon left them with a small contingent of his guard bearing his house sigil. He had said something about the ladies not being able to carry weapons and thus needing the extra muscle, at which point Leliana had laughed delicately and produced not just one but _three_ different daggers secreted away on her person. Eamon had merely stared for a moment before smiling and shaking his head, making some comment or other about the strange and amusing sort of people Solona had picked up along the way.

Now, they sat upon their horses, up high to keep the mud and grime off their expensive clothing. Well, all except for Sten, who walked stiffly in the formal clothing that had been custom-made for him. His people normally wore only trousers, painting themselves as befit their station and wearing armor for battle. But he also came from a hot place, and stoic as he might be, walking through the market with only trousers and his talon-toed feet was simply not possible for so long a time. Besides that, he was Solona and Alistair's kith, and so insisted upon being there should things go wrong. The compromise had been that he cover himself like every other person – human, elf, or dwarf – who would be present. He had not been pleased, but Solona could not deny that he cut a rather striking figure in his leather jerkin and fine woolen trousers. They had even managed boots of sorts, hiding the talons sprouting from his toes from view. Sten was… tolerant.

Eamon and his party, which included Teagan, Fergus, and Elissa, were already inside the palace when Solona's party approached. As she dismounted her horse, the herald walked up, his expression making it clear he was unsure what to make of their eclectic band.

"And who else comes to the Landsmeet? All the lords of the realm are already present."

Alistair looked around, searching until he found Solona's eyes upon him. She raised a single brow at him, informing him that _he_ had to act in authority in this. He seemed to shake himself into his role, looking down upon the herald from atop his horse with as much authority as he could muster.

"I am Alistair Theirin, heir to the throne. These are my companions, including the Warden-Commander of Ferelden," he finished, gesturing to Solona. "They are not to be harmed."

"The… wardens are outlaws, ser," the man started, but Alistair cut him off as he dismounted his horse.

"They are here under _my_ protection." Glaring hard, he added, "Go announce us. Let the Regent decide if he wishes to try to arrest us."

"I… yes, ser. As you command." The man, almost Alistair's height but not nearly his bulk, ran off, somehow looking small and frightened despite his stature.

Solona chuckled. "Way to charm him, Alistair."

"It is only what would be expected of a king," Zevran said with a smile, handing his horse's reins to a groom who had appeared. "You expect to be obeyed, and usually, people _will_ obey."

"It feels silly. And then I'm always amazed when people actually listen," Alistair observed, resting his hand on the sword at his hip. Everyone who normally sported weaponry had something on his or her belt, as any gentleman at court would, or secreted on their person, in Leliana's case. But they were still more sparsely armed than usual, only swords and daggers, and the giant sword in Sten's case – he would not be separated from his _Asala_ , what he called his soul, and Solona agreed. No shields, no staves, nothing that would make them stand out in this place. The goal was to blend in as much as was possible. Given that they counted an elf, two dwarves, and a qunari kossith among their number… it was a difficult proposition, no matter how they dressed or which weapons they carried. But they could at least look like they had _tried_.

"Do we just… walk in?" Solona asked, taking hold of Leliana's hand momentarily. She knew the bard was nervous about being in that room with the man who had tortured her, accusing her of being a spy while he did so – just as the chevaliers had. Solona could do very little for her while they were inside, so she took what opportunity presented itself out here to remind her lover that she was here and that she would allow no harm to come to anyone if she could help it.

"I suppose so," Alistair muttered, brows knit. He still looked odd, but two weeks of steady growth had given him some hair and beard to style, and the blonde man's eyebrows had never been particularly striking anyway. He looked far more normal than he had right after their altercation with Flemeth, as did Zevran. Well, as normal as either of them might look in such finery, anyway.

"You in the lead, Alistair," Wynne reminded him.

He nodded, his smile wan. "Right you are, Wynne." Taking a second to mentally prepare himself, he stepped forward, leading them all into the palace.

* * *

"Warden, I am not surprised it has come to this."

Alistair knit his brows, regarding the woman who blocked their way as her eyes moved from Solona to himself. "And Alistair. If you were even remotely worthy of being called Maric's son, you would _already_ be in the Landsmeet, wouldn't you? You have torn Ferelden apart to oppose the very man who ensured you were born into freedom! But do not think you will get past me to desecrate the Landsmeet itself." Pointing toward the chambers into which they hoped to pass, she added, "The nobles of Ferelden will confirm my lord as Regent, and we can finally put this to rest. And _none_ of you are nobles of this land."

Alistair could see Solona's hands clench into fists at her side. He opened his mouth without quite knowing what he would say, simply so she did not blow up at Cauthrien, who was Ferelden's finest knight. She could not help following her lord's orders, but neither could this act, which was clearly of her own volition, be ignored.

"Stand aside, Ser Cauthrien."

"Do not order me about as if you are some noble, Alistair! You have no title! You are merely a stable boy, a failed templar, and a traitor. Your brethren killed the king!"

Alistair frowned. "Do yourself a favor and stop pretending to believe that. You were at Ostagar. In fact, you probably led the retreat that Loghain ordered when we signaled for what was _supposed_ to be reinforcements! Did your heart bleed for the king then? Did you question your commander then as you act without his authority now?"

"I… we had to fall back, or _everyone_ would be decimated-"

"Stop fooling yourself, ser! Only the Grey Wardens can kill an archdemon. My brethren gave their _lives_ so your commander and yourself could quit the field without taking so much as a _scratch_!" Pausing, Alistair regarded her a moment. "Do you truly not see what Loghain has become? He is so paranoid about Orlais that he killed your king at the mere suggestion that we ought to accept the offer of help from the Grey Wardens of Orlais. The wardens are outside the government! The wardens of Orlais posed _no threat_ , Cauthrien! They merely speak with an accent."

She remained silent, regarding Alistair with murder in her eyes.

"And then he tortured my friend, accusing her of spying on Ferelden, calling a lady all manner of filthy things, merely because she _speaks with an accent_. Yet she is a loyal Ferelden! Born here, of Ferelden parents! This language was her first! These are the acts of a deluded _charlatan_ who needs to be _stopped_. We have work to do, and he sabotages his own country at every turn because of a grudge from a war that ended nearly three decades ago! The _Blight_ is the true threat!"

"I… I have had so many doubts of late," Cauthrien finally confessed, her face falling. "Loghain is a great man, but… there was no reason I could see that we should have quit the field when we did. There was no reason to suspect your friend of infiltration. She even _looks_ Ferelden." She paused, closing her eyes for a moment. "He has done terrible things, but I owe him everything. No other lord would raise up a woman when we met, no matter how well she fought, to knighthood. Loghain was the only one who would even _begin_ to see me as equal to a man of equal skill. I cannot betray him! Do not ask me to!"

"I am not asking you to, Cauthrien. Merely stand aside and let the Landsmeet do what it must, and uphold whatever decision the nobles come to. For you are pledged as a knight of the realm, not a knight of Loghain Mac Tir."

They regarded each other for a long while, soldier to soldier, before she stepped aside. "I never knew duty would taste so bitter. Stop him, my lord, before he betrays everything he once loved. " Alistair did not miss that, at the last, she acknowledged his right to the throne.

"Well, that was… interesting," Solona supplied as they approached the doors into the great hall of the palace.

Alistair snorted. "Tell me about it. You know, I remember admiring her when I was a young templar, every time she came into Denerim with Loghain. We once held an informal tournament of sorts, where the best knights of the lords in the city and the best of the templars all fought for the title. Cauthrien won. Over all the templars and all the knights. It made the other knights _furious_. The templars just asked her for advice.

"I think that just shows where their priorities lie," he continued. "Say what you will about them – and I know you have plenty of nasty things to say – but most who join _think_ they are joining a great cause. It brings prestige, yes, but it is also grueling. You fight with sword and shield against an enemy that can cast nightmares into your mind. Knights are all about fighting honorably. Templars wish to stay alive, to continue their duty. That Cauthrien won means she is adaptable. And that is how you stay alive when it truly counts."

He looked pointedly to Solona. She just furrowed her brows, pausing outside the door. "Why are you looking at me like that? How much more adaptable can I get? I spar with dwarves, a qunari, against my own lover – who is far deadlier than the lot of you _combined_ , mind. And does not pull her punches for me. Scary little girl," she finished with a wink at her lover. Leliana merely smiled sweetly, curtseying for them.

Alistair grinned. "That is a good point. I'm glad I have you as my champion. I hope it doesn't come to it, but…"

"But it will," Zevran spoke up from his right side. Taking a moment, Alistair turned, looking from person to person – Solona, Leliana, Wynne, Zevran, Oghren, Natia, Sten, Max, and finally even Morrigan. Nodding to each, he thanked them silently before turning back to the door.

"Yes," he finally said, opening it and letting the scene of _so many people_ wash over him. "Yes, I fear you're right, Zevran. It _is_ going to happen."

* * *

Eamon was in the middle of an impassioned speech to the nobles gathered when they entered. As quietly as possible, they began to make their way to the clear space before the throne, which sat empty. Loghain stood in the uniform of his soldiers – light leather cuirass over thick woolen shirt and trousers, his shield on his back and his sword at his hip – with his arms folded over his chest. He wore a scowl upon his face.

By the time Alistair and his companions reached the edge of the cleared area, Eamon was done, and everyone was quiet, regarding Alistair's party with much curiosity. All except Loghain, who started speaking to Eamon, clapping his hands together as though he were at a show of some sort.

"A fine performance, Eamon. But no one here is taken in by it." His voice was smooth, like black silk, or dark standing water. And much like water that stands too long in dark places, it reeked with unseen filth. "You would attempt to put a _puppet_ on the throne, and every soul here knows it. The better question is, 'Who would pull the strings?'"

Alistair furrowed his brow as he came to a halt. As Solona and Leliana came to rest on either side of him, Loghain turned dramatically, eyes afire as he pointed accusingly in their direction. "Ah! And here is the puppeteer!"

"Which of us do you think he means?" Solona murmured, clearly trying to stare the Regent down.

"Me," Leliana replied softly. "In the dungeons, do you remember, Alistair? He thinks we are lovers, and you did nothing to make him think otherwise."

Neither Alistair nor Solona could reply, as Loghain continued, confirming Leliana's conclusion. "Tell us, _bastard_. Would the order for Orlesian troops to occupy us come directly through your Orlesian whore? Or would you at least _pretend_ it was on your own command? What did they offer you?" Loghain asked of Alistair, locking eyes with him. "What is the price of Ferelden honor now?"

"The Blight is the threat, Loghain," Alistair countered, taking a step from his companions with a frown. "Orlais never had anything to do with _any_ of this!"

"There are enough refugees in my bannorn now to make _that_ abundantly clear," a woman called. Alistair looked in her direction, seeing a surprisingly shorthaired woman in a fine dress, pale of skin and dark of hair. She stood with an air of command, taller lords flanking her, clearly her support should she need it. One of them Alistair recognized immediately from Howe's dungeons as the templar they had freed, standing in his armor, his eyes no longer hazed with the delirium of lyrium withdrawal. This woman was Bann Alfstanna.

Another lord, unknown to Alistair, also spoke, addressing Loghain directly. "The south is fallen, Loghain! Will you let the darkspawn take the whole country for fear of Orlais?"

"The Blight is real, Wulff, I do not deny this," Loghain called out in answer. "But do we need Grey Wardens to fight it?" He began to pace, gesturing somewhat wildly as he beseeched his fellow nobles. "They claim that they alone can end the Blight, yet they failed spectacularly against the darkspawn at Ostagar!" Alistair's blood began to boil with Loghain's poisonous words, and it was all he could do to clench his fists and say nothing. Interrupting with impassioned anger would win him nothing. Loghain must look the fool, and Alistair the logical and superior choice. "They ask to bring with them legions of Orlesian chevaliers along with Orlais' wardens! And once we open our borders to them, can we really expect them to return from whence they came?"

Alistair could hold his tongue no longer, his anger at Loghain's half-truths overpowering his nervousness in front of all these important people. He did at least try to channel his calmest self, though. "Loghain only speaks the parts of the truth he wants you to hear!" Alistair called, looking to the nobles instead of Loghain, knowing enough about this kind of speaking to know that he needed them to see the truth in his face. "He allowed Rendon Howe to capture and torture innocents in his dungeons! He allowed Rendon Howe to attack Highever with baseless accusations, and imprison the Cousland's only daughter, torturing _her_ when she did not agree to marry him! He quit the field at Ostagar when the signal was lit, ensuring the death of the wardens and the king! And to fund his army, he has been selling the elves of the alienage into slavery in Tevinter!" Pointing accusingly at Loghain, he finished with, "This is the war hero you think so highly of! These are the things he is willing to do!"

Alistair had to hand it to him: as those gathered in the chamber turned their eyes upon Loghain, he did not shrink under their collective gaze. "Howe was responsible for himself, and will answer to the Maker for any wrong he committed in his life. You ought to know, as you were the one who murdered him. You and your Cousland lackey who stands behind Eamon even now."

"Actually, Loghain," Eamon spoke up, a furious-looking Fergus standing behind him, "we have proof, at least of your hand in selling loyal Ferelden citizens into slavery." Producing the documents stolen off the dead Tevinter Magister, Eamon handed them to the seneschal, who ostensibly kept order in these proceedings. "As you can see, ser, Howe and Loghain signed here, authorizing Tevinter slavers and mages to come and set up shop in the alienage under the ruse of a plague. There was no plague. The elves revolted against Urien when his son disrupted a local wedding, and Loghain's answer was to sell them off. It also funded his armies, which he has been using to put down resistances across the countryside rather than focusing upon the darkspawn."

"My brother tells an interesting tale, as well," Alfstanna called, staring down Loghain with a vehemence that could only be born of harm to a beloved family member. "He says you snatched a blood mage from the Chantry's justice, delivering _my brother_ to Howe to keep him from reporting your wrongdoings. The same blood mage, it is rumored, who poisoned the arl and kept him ill until the wardens were able to cure him!"

Loghain actually _laughed_. "You are so worried about the Chantry's justice? And yet you do not recognize an apostate when she comes before you in the finery of a noble!" he shouted, whirling around and pointing accusingly at Solona. "Look at the marks upon her face, templar! You know what she is."

Alistair stepped in, walking several paces closer to Loghain. "Again with half-truths! That is Solona Amell, Commander of the Grey Wardens of Ferelden! As you know, Loghain, as well as any templar, the wardens are legally allowed to have mages who operate outside of the Circle!"

"It is known that a fresh mage of the Circle was taken by the previous Warden-Commander. But why the apostate's markings?" Alistair frowned at the Revered Mother of Denerim's Chantry, who was in attendance by tradition. Very much against tradition, she spoke, commanding silence in the room like no other could.

He saw Solona open her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand to stay her. This was his battle. Hers was against the darkspawn, and against Loghain in combat, should it come to that. "Surely we can all be forgiven the impulsive decisions of our youths, Revered Mother? Warden-Commander Amell happened upon a way to escape in her youth and she took it, immediately seeking out the family she had not seen since she went to the Circle as a small child. They were happy to see her, but ultimately loyal to the Maker, calling the templars to take her home to the Circle. As all in the Chantry and service of the Templar Order know, those who leave and are returned are marked, so as to discourage them from doing so again. It is the Maker's mercy, truly, so that the Rite of Tranquility might be delayed."

His own version of a half-truth, he knew, but it could not be helped. It had not been in Solona's youth. Her aid to the blood mage in question need not be known. And her – and his – contempt for what the Chantry and Order of Templars had become also need not be known. His goal was to pacify the Revered Mother, and given the smile and nod she gave him, it worked.

"As you say, young man. We can be forgiven the impulses of youth. And she does exist legally outside the Chantry now."

Loghain frowned. "If this is the hour of accusations, then I would know what you have done with my daughter."

Alistair merely raised a brow. "We found her locked away in Howe's estate. Were you not aware? She _said_ it was done at your command, my Lord."

Anora chose this moment to push forward from the crowd, removing the hood of her cloak. Truth be told, he had almost forgotten this was part of the plan. "I believe I can speak for myself," she announced, removing the cloak fully to reveal a dress of royal purple and her small scepter of office. "Lords and Ladies of Ferelden, hear me! My father is no longer the man that you know. This man is _not_ the Hero of River Dane. _This_ man turned his troops aside and refused to protect your king – my beloved husband – as he fought bravely against the darkspawn! This man seized Cailan's throne before his body was cold and had Howe lock me away as soon as I began to suspect his treachery! I would already have been killed, my death blamed upon Arl Eamon, were it not for Warden Theirin and Lord Cousland coming to my aid!"

"So… the wardens' influence has poisoned even your mind, Anora," Loghain said quietly, regarding his daughter like she held a knife to his throat. Turning, he addressed the nobles gathered. "My Lords and Ladies! Our lands have been threatened before! It has been invaded, and lost, and won times beyond counting! We Fereldans have proven that we will never truly be conquered so long as we are united! We must not let ourselves be divided now! Stand with me, and we shall defeat even the Blight itself!"

"And who exactly is trying to conquer us, Loghain?" Alistair asked, countering Loghain's strong, impassioned shouting with a quiet, concerned voice. "The darkspawn want to rape and pillage our lands – they care not to rule. And the only hint of an Orlesian you have in this room is a woman who was born of this land and taken to Orlais by her mother as a small child. As an adult, she came back to us."

Loghain only stared at him hard, obviously not believing him.

"We would hear your vote!" Eamon called after a moment, looking around the room. "What say you? With whom do you side?"

One by one, around the room, each bann, arl, and teyrn, in the case of Fergus, sided with Alistair. All except one, unknown to the bastard child of the king. The man was whiny, sniveling, his voice breaking as he threw his lot in with Loghain, claiming they had no hope for success otherwise. Loghain was… upset, to say the least. But that one vote in his favor robbed Alistair of the clean, outright victory he needed to avoid Loghain invoking combat, and it was with a heavy sigh that the king's bastard silently resigned himself to the inevitable.

"Traitors!" Loghain shouted, looking almost panicked as he pointed around the room accusingly. "Which of you stood against the Orlesian emperor when he flattened your fields and raped your wives?! You fought with us once, Eamon! You cared about this land once! Before you got too old and fat, fucking your Orlesian _harlot_ and producing that abomination you call a son!"

"You go too far!" someone shouted, but Loghain continued.

"None of you deserve a say in what happens here! None of you have spilled blood for this country the way I have! How _dare_ you judge me?!"

"I have," Solona said quietly, and yet everyone seemed to hear her, all eyes turning toward the mage. "Alistair has. Leliana, Wynne, Zevran, a qunari, elves and dwarves… even the damn dog has shed blood on behalf of this country! Hell, Loghain, Alistair and Leliana spilled blood at _your hands_. Or will you stand here and deny that you tortured them _yourself_?" Not waiting for his answer, Solona continued, stepping into the middle of the cleared space. "Enough of this endless arguing. I challenge you, Loghain, on Alistair's behalf. Do you accept?"

"You expect me to fight against your magic?" he scoffed. "That is hardly honorable."

"No magic," Solona said, resting a hand on the pommel of Duncan's sword pointedly. "I will defeat you with sweat and steel."

The Regent studied her for a moment. Alistair found he was holding his breath as he waited for Loghain's response. Loghain nodded once, not taking his eyes from Solona. "Very well. A man is made by the quality of his enemies, as Maric once told me. Let us see who is made today. Let the Landsmeet decide the terms of the duel."

Alfstanna spoke from the side of the room. "It shall be fought according to tradition: a test of arms in single combat until one party yields. And we who are assembled will abide by the outcome, Maker help us."

* * *

The room was a blur of activity, but Solona was an island of calm. Leliana silently aided her, taking her jerkin, her cloak, her sword belt with the scabbards for Duncan's blades upon it. They both made sure her sleeves were secured and would not come untied at the wrist at an inopportune moment. At last, they stood quietly, looking into each other's eyes. Without thinking hard about what might happen, how those in the room might react, Solona took the bard into her arms, hugging her tightly before turning her face up with one hand for a kiss.

Then they were parting, and Solona was drawing her blades from the scabbards in Leliana's hands, whirling around to see Loghain strapping his shield to his arm. He had removed the light leather cuirass he had been wearing, honorably fighting with the same lack of armor she herself bore. When he was through with his shield, he pulled his sword from its scabbard, also being held by another, no longer an encumbrance on his hip. Then he faced Solona, and she finally got to truly look him in the face.

His long, dark hair was pulled back. His crooked nose, clearly broken time and time again throughout his many years, sat below brows that seemed permanently turned down in a scowl. As they approached each other, she could see dark circles under his eyes. It did not surprise her that he was not getting good sleep – a traitor's life must be weary and stressful, indeed.

He lifted his sword in front of him in the traditional salute, and she followed suit. Alfstanna herself stepped forward, touching both their pommels, nodding to them, and shouting, "Begin!" before ducking back out of the way.

Loghain opened, taking a step forward and whipping his shield out. It was a move she likely would have fallen for had it not been one of Alistair's favored tricks. As it was, she danced back, unable to take advantage of him slightly overbalancing, but also not having to deal with the pain and watering eyes of a broken nose. Her inability to heal herself quickly was going to work against her here. She needed to be cautious, at least at first, or she could be too weak from some stupid injury to overcome the weathered general.

As Solona regained her balance, so did Loghain. His dark brown eyes peeked at her over his shield, watching her, reminding her of a predator as he waited for her move. Clearly, if she got close again, she would merely receive his shield to her face. He was not taller than her – few people were – but he was bulkier, stockier, his muscles larger and honed over many years. She was strong from months of walking and riding, and she was heavily muscled from the sparring and from the taint, but still she could not out-strength most fighting men. She had to be cunning with her strength.

And fast. That was the lesson that had been hammered into her head, into her hands and feet, her very _being_ , from all the months she'd spent watching Leliana consistently best men three times her size. If you were small, then you had to be fast, and get in close. Fast to attack, fast to dodge, and fast to recover should your attack fail.

She had lost her chance to be fast this time, however, so instead, she began to pace, circling Loghain, looking for an opening. He followed her every move, studying her as her feet rose and fell, obviously looking for some weakness or break in her concentration. _If I can meditate for hours on end, then I can keep my concentration until this traitorous bastard makes a mistake_ , she thought to herself, watching as his body subtly shifted so he was always facing her.

 _I need to get around him. His flank is entirely unprotected, no armor of any kind_.

Making a decision, she feinted in with her sword, trying to tease him out of his defensive stance. If she could get him to take a step, then she could take one in the opposite direction and get her sword in while he tried to compensate for her opposing move. Unfortunately, he didn't fall for the ruse, simply moving his shield to deflect her sword. After three tries, she abandoned it, continuing to circle him as she thought of something else.

Suddenly Loghain's blade flashed out, faster than she would have guessed, and it was all she could do to bat it away with her dagger, it got so close. It reminded her of fighting the spirit in the Fade in Redcliffe. Following the same instinct as overtook her then, she fell purposefully to the ground, rolling until she was practically underneath the teyrn. She didn't hesitate as her dagger lashed out, slicing into the leather of his boot and biting into his flesh. She paid for it, however, as that foot kicked out toward her face. It missed her head as she rolled away again, but he still got her shoulder, _hard_. Releasing a bark of pain, Solona nonetheless rolled over once more before finding her feet nearly as swiftly as she did when channeling her arcane energy.

Upright now, she brought her weapons to bear just as Loghain's sword lashed out again. She caught it with both blades crossed, stepping close, inside the reach of his blade, diverting it to the side. Unfortunately, she forgot about his shield in her eagerness to get close enough to gut him with Duncan's dagger, and suddenly a wall of steel filled her vision, a moment before white-hot pain exploded across her face and behind her eyes.

Her fast reflexes were the only thing that saved her. Pushing away without really even deciding to, she threw Loghain off balance and avoided the sharp edge of his sword in one go. Shaking her head, trying to clear her vision – to see only _one_ of Loghain, and not two of him – she kept her weapons before her. It was a stupid mistake, and it nearly got her gutted. She couldn't imagine Leliana was pleased.

As her vision cleared, Loghain now standing firm, but with a noticeable limp when he _did_ move, she pictured Leliana. Her beautiful, intelligent, talented bard, cut open by this backstabbing murderer before her. She would cut him open, too. It wouldn't even be that hard.

She just had to get behind him.

Taking off at a run, Solona headed straight for Loghain. Loghain braced for the impact, his sword ready to take her. The move was stupid; everyone had to know it. But at the last second, she veered to the right, toward his shield and away from his sword, and ran right past the slowed general, heading for the wall behind him. It was a move she had never tried while not channeling her arcane energy, but at the moment she was chock-full of confidence in her ability to do it, and with a cry, she lifted a leg, using her momentum to "run" up the wall two steps and push off, doing a backflip through the air.

She landed behind a stunned Loghain and immediately slashed down his back, from the nape of his neck to the waistband of his trousers. He cried out, his sword clattering upon the flagstones as he fell to his knees. Getting close, she reached around and pulled Duncan's dagger against Loghain's throat, growling in his ear.

"Do you yield, Regent?"

A pause.

"Yes. I yield, Warden-Commander."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you recognize the Xena move Solona pulls in her fight? I'd been watching Xena a lot when I originally wrote this, so I decided I had to put an homage in here.


	60. The King Is Returned

"I accept your surrender," Solona announced, removing her blade from Loghain's throat. Her nose was broken, the blood dripping down onto her shirt. It was a shame – it was a nice shirt. Her eyes were still swimming in tears, the pain hot and throbbing in her sinuses. Honestly, it made her head spin a little. But she had escaped any other nasty wounds, and she could certainly bear the pain. She simply wasn't used to it, as normally she would have healed from the injury immediately thanks to her magic.

"But I do _not_ accept this _pup_ as my king," Loghain continued, eyeing Alistair murderously. "You will have to kill me."

"Father!" Anora yelled, running forward. "You are still a hero, Father! Accept Alistair and I as your liege lords, and you still may be of some use! Your experience as a general is too valuable!"

"I will not. Cailan was a child playing at war, and this one doesn't even have a legitimate claim to the throne. He was not raised by generals, he has no command experience, and he welcomes Orlais into our country, and into his bed. I cannot accept him as my king."

Alistair stepped forward, coming to Solona's side with a cloth to hold to her nose. He swiftly set it for her, the pain intense for a moment before it faded to a dull throb that was ever so much more comfortable than it had been. She shook the last bit of fogginess from her vision as Alistair rounded on Loghain, still on his knees. "You cannot accept me as your king, and I cannot have an openly disloyal teyrn. I hereby strip you of your titles-"

Eamon cut him off, clearing his throat to gain their attention as he joined them. "The penalty for treason is death, your Highness," he announced, catching Alistair's eyes meaningfully. "I am sure the Landsmeet will agree." Murmured affirmation and nodding heads surrounded them.

"But… he yielded," Alistair said, confusion evident on his face.

"Your Highness," Eamon stated, turning to him with a sympathetic expression. "You are kind, and loving, and merciful – everything we want in our liege lord. But this… to not accept the choice of the nobles of the Landsmeet as his king, Loghain commits treason. He also killed the last king, the Grey Wardens, and committed a whole other mess of crimes against the Crown and its people. He must die for these crimes. And he knows that by refusing to serve you, he refuses to serve the Crown, and therefore must die. Don't you, Loghain?"

Loghain merely nodded as he unstrapped his shield from his arm, on his feet now. Much as she hated him, Solona couldn't help a grudging respect for his serene acceptance of his fate.

"Why?" Alistair queried, pushing past Eamon and addressing Loghain directly. "Why would you throw your life away like this?! Why do all this? It will not affect the outcome, anyway! You've already been beaten, Loghain!"

"I will not bend my knee to an Orlesian sympathizer," he retorted hotly, before spitting upon the king. The reaction was immediate. He was cuffed over the head, seized by guards at the seneschal's behest, and dragged before Alistair, who had stumbled back as the spittle landed upon his face. Loghain was now in front of him, forced to his knees, as Alistair wiped off his face.

"You must do this, Alistair," Solona heard Eamon murmur, handing him a sword on par with Sten's in size. "It is the king's justice, and you would do well to dole out the punishment yourself. A strong leader would not shy away from this."

Alistair took the sword, still obviously flabbergasted. But his expression hardened as he looked upon Loghain, still utterly unapologetic. Solona moved to his side, murmuring in his ear low, so no one else could hear her.

"You can do this, Alistair. This one thing, and you will be done for the day. And you can come home and yell and scream all you like."

Alistair smirked for half a second before his expression cleared once more. It wasn't much, but she'd take it. His stern gaze looked out from under furrowed brows, and when he gave one curt nod to the guards holding Loghain, one of them gripped the teyrn's hair and pulled his head down, holding his hand well away from Loghain's neck. Taking a deep breath, Alistair lifted the sword two hands, bringing it down rapidly upon Loghain's neck, severing his life instantly with the power in his massive shoulders.

Blood sprayed, dripped, flowed, rivulets trickling away from the teyrn's body. A wet plop sounded, and then Loghain's head stared back at them, eyes open and blank, expression caught in his customary scowl.

"It is done," Alistair announced, handing the sword back to the guard that had produced it. "And this Landsmeet is over. Excuse me, my Lords. I need some air."

Turning, he made to stride away, but was stopped by the cry of a rent soul. "I will never marry you, Alistair! He robbed me of my husband, but you have robbed me of the last of my family! You have made me an _orphan_! I will _never_ love you, Alistair! You can find yourself a _different_ queen, and good luck running this country without me!"

Alistair sighed, shook his head, and continued walking.

"That will be fine, Anora," he said, opening the door and exiting the room. Exchanging a look with Leliana, Solona hurried after her brother, the bard one step behind her.

* * *

Leliana drew in front of her lover as they, too, passed through the doors into the entrance hall. It had been unpleasant to watch Solona take that hit to her face, and seeing such blood upon her lover was… uncomfortable. The mage had blood on her shirt, down over her mouth and chin, and she sported two spectacular black eyes _already_. But Solona was actually fine – a broken nose looked dramatic, but it was otherwise a very minor injury. It was just that Solona very rarely _stayed_ injured, so seeing her this was something Leliana was not accustomed to.

No, it was Alistair who was now in pain, no less potent for the lack of physical wound. His first execution, only moments after gaining the crown…

"Leli, I think he's going to- _ALISTAIR_!" Alistair had stridden forward until he no longer could, stopping before the cool stone wall. As Solona had spoken, he had suddenly reared back a fist and punched the stones in front of him, letting out a roar of pure rage and frustration.

Leliana broke into a run, letting out her own cry of concern as she hurried to Alistair's side. She reached for his hand as he turned toward them, pain and rage and fear and so many other things showing in his face, especially his deep brown eyes. He pulled away from her.

"Just leave it," he murmured, and Leliana pulled back her hands. Tears swam in his eyes, but he very quickly had them under control, standing with his hand cradled against his chest. "I just… I can't… I don't even know how to feel, or what to do, or what even just _happened_!" he bemoaned. "I needed to get it out somehow."

"That all must have been very confusing," Leliana said softly, trying to be understanding while also cursing him for an idiot. They could not heal his self-inflicted injury.

Alistair scoffed. "Confusing isn't the half of it! I… I _wanted_ to kill him, don't you see? I have fantasized about this day, this moment, since we woke up in Flemeth's hut! Loghain needed to die, needed to pay. He needed to be out of the picture, no longer a danger to anyone. He needed to pay for the lives he had taken, for Duncan's death. And _I_ wanted to make him pay!"

"And he _did_ pay, Alistair," Solona started. "You made him pay!"

He cut her off from anything further with the fervent shaking of his head. "No, you don't understand, Solona. I don't want to be that kind of person, that kind of king. I don't want to take vengeance on people who hurt me personally. When I'm in that room, on that throne, with the damn crown on my head… I'm _more_ than myself. I'm an _idea_ ; I represent an entire nation. I don't want to insult that idea by using it to get back at petty squabbles! Stripping him of land and titles, imprisoning him, making him work off his debt… _that_ is the kind of nation I want to live in, the kind I want to represent as their king. I don't want to take off the head of every person who ever insulted me personally. That… would be a lot of heads," he finished quietly.

"As the bastard child of the king, I can only imagine how many people have earned your ire," Leliana commented, meeting his eyes. He merely nodded before turning away, sighing tiredly.

"But what you did was right, and just," Solona protested, silencing when Leliana laid a hand on her arm. The bard merely shook her head at Solona's questioning look.

Alistair shook his head. "I've been so afraid that being king would be like being me _before_ , when I was just a bastard who couldn't make any of his own decisions. I've been so hell-bent on making sure my own conscience is not compromised. And yet, as soon as Eamon told me I must kill him, that's _exactly what I did_."

After a moment of silence, in which Leliana watched comprehension dawn over Solona's face, she spoke up. "I can see how that would be frustrating, Alistair. But as you say… this is _bigger_ than you. It is bigger than the scared boy who didn't know what it meant to be a bastard, who didn't know how important his father was or why he could not be part of your life. It is bigger than Eamon being accustomed to telling you what to do. This was the king's advisor telling the king what must be done for the good of the nation. And good kings listen to their advisors' counsel. You did not let your morals be compromised, Alistair – you were the kind of king you wish to be."

"How can you say that?" he said, rounding on her. "How can you be so sure?"

She just smiled sadly, shrugging. "I was a bard, Alistair. My loyalties were fluid, my body did not belong to me, and my words could never be genuine. The only thing I had was my own moral compass, and any bard who wishes to remain sane learns to not listen to that. I know what it looks like to lose that, to ignore it. And it does not look like the frustrated king before me."

They just held each other's gaze for a moment out of time, Solona's hand resting on each of their shoulders as she shared this moment with them. Finally, Alistair nodded, a faint smile on his lips.

"Right you are, Leliana. To have such good friends… the Maker has truly blessed me. Now, come on. I'm sure I have a million and one things to attend to before they'll let me get drunk and eat my way through the royal kitchens."

"Not to mention we need to splint your hand until we can fix it up for you," Solona added.

Smiling, Leliana turned, stopping momentarily, blinking as she tried to decide if she actually saw what she saw. At the door, just for a moment, she had seen Elissa, a slight frown upon her face before she disappeared back inside.

"Leli? You all right?"

"I… yes, Solona. Just… I thought I saw something." With another moment of confusion, she shook the feeling, following Alistair back into the throne room.

* * *

An hour of formalities, of kneeling and signet-kissing and attaching of royal accouterments – after splinting his hand, of course – and Alistair had had enough. Leaving the more mundane decision-making in Zevran's capable hands – he had decided some time ago that the elf would likely be his most-trusted advisor – Alistair marched off to the kitchens, hoping to find something to eat and some time to think away from all the pomp and circumstance in the throne room.

Now he sat at the table in the corner, the elven servants looking askance at him but not asking any questions. It was… familiar to him. He had spent his childhood at the small table in the kitchens in Redcliffe, eating with the other servants on the scrubbed wood table, plain and hearty fare that allowed him to work in the stables all day. The cook here had been very confused, but no one was willing to tell him he couldn't, so he had seated himself at the table and asked for bread, cheese, and steamed vegetables.

"Can I have an ale, too?" he asked now, his mouth and throat parched after several bites of bread and cheese. It came a minute later, but he was most assuredly _not_ expecting the person who delivered it to him. "Elissa?"

The newly reinstated Lady of Highever gave a little curtsey and a wink. "At your service, your Highness. I… thought I'd come check on you."

He snorted around a mouthful of ale. "You service doesn't include bringing me food and drink, my Lady. It involves…" He tilted his head up at her. "What do Ladies of the realm do?"

She chuckled, taking hold of a chair. "May I sit?" He nodded, rushing to pull the chair out for her, but was only batted away. "Please, I can pull out my own chair. Especially since you have only one good hand for the moment. Now, you wanted to know what ladies do. As far as I can tell, it's nothing. We gossip, we make babies that our servants raise, and we learn to how to make lace so that we'll never have to do it again – until we teach our daughters, of course." She rolled her eyes. "Luckily, Mother didn't believe in such nonsense. I learned needlework, yes, but I also learned about real governing, and she let me practice with a sword and shield. It gave me an… _unladylike_ figure, beating Fergus to a pulp every day, but I rather enjoyed it, regardless."

"You figure is far from unappealing," he commented, inwardly delighting in the blush that crept across her cheeks. "And I'm unsurprised your mother taught you all of that. She was a battlemaiden during the war with Orlais, was she not?"

"Indeed, she was," Elissa confirmed. "A fine archer, and a strategist. Mother and Father met on the battlefield, or at camp, rather. His father and _her_ father joined forces, and she was Grandfather's chief ranged tactician. Father was… hers immediately, I believe is how he put it."

"I can see why, if you carry her same beauty and fiery spirit." He smiled. "And I do admire a woman who can thoroughly trounce me in a workout."

"There are women who can trounce you?" Elissa asked through her furious blush. "You're so… strong."

He nodded. "To this day I have not beaten Leliana while we spar, no matter how tired or run-down she is. She always manages to wriggle free and then put me right on my arse." He paused, thinking back a few months – what felt like years and years. "Even through that, I fancied her until she told me in no uncertain terms to knock it off." Shaking his head, he added, "Seems like a lifetime ago when she and Solona had their eyes on each other. I can't even imagine her that way any longer."

He missed the cloud that descended over her features as he took another bite of food and swig of ale.

"Well, I should be going, your Highness-"

"Please, call me Alistair, at least while it's just the two of us?" he asked, halting her from rising to her feet.

"It is not just the two of us," she pointed out a little coldly, settling nonetheless back into her chair. "I thought you weren't one to discount the presence of elven servants as people?"

He frowned for a moment. "That's not what I meant."

She sighed, and the ice seemed to melt. "I'm sorry. You're right, of course, Alistair. You meant when you're not acting as the Crown, but just being… you. Our Alistair."

She seemed to almost caress his name each time she said it, and Alistair's reaction by the end was entirely physical. He was aroused. _Sweet Andraste, this is ridiculous! I just haven't been with a woman in far too long. My own_ _ **name**_ _arousing me…_ It might also have been partly because she claimed him as her own, at least in part. " _Our_ Alistair," she had said.

"Right, well, I… ought to go. Figure out where I'm supposed to sleep, and what they'll let me do on my own or not," he rushed, standing from the table and turning partway, trying to think of un-arousing things to force the evidence away. "Good day, my Lady. I… thank you, for your support, and your company."

He then hurried out of the kitchen, leaving a thoroughly confused Cousland Lady staring at his retreating back, his half-eaten meal lying out before her.

By the time Alistair was led to the royal apartments, it was early evening. It hadn't felt like that much of the day had passed, but the evidence was there out the windows for all to see. Sighing, he sank to the far too richly embroidered cover of the duvet, reaching down gingerly and pulling off his boots. Then off came the silk jerkin, the fine linen trousers, the stockings and shirt, until he was entirely naked except for smallclothes. Lying back on the bed, arms outstretched, taking up barely a third of the gigantic feather bed, he merely stared up at the canopy above him.

Sighing, he spoke out loud. "Maker, what did I get myself into?"

* * *

"You look like you got into a fight with a wall," Leliana lectured.

"Ow! Maker, Leliana!" Solona practically yelped, jumping out of reach of her lover. "And I _did_ have a fight with a wall – Loghain's shield, remember?"

Leliana didn't seem to have any sympathy for her. "Yes, I _do_ remember. I had to watch it happen, if you recall, and I could do nothing to help." Reaching up, she took hold of Solona's jaw in a vice grip, not allowing her to move as she continued to wipe away the dried blood around her nose. It was still swollen, and it was still a little difficult to breathe through her nose, but Wynne had pronounced Alistair's resetting of her nose satisfactory until she was able to use her magic. The trip to the Chantry for her phylactery would happen the next morning.

"I… I'm sorry, Leli. But we knew something like this might happen, was even _likely_ to happen, as I prepared for the duel. Honestly, I'm pleasantly surprised it was only _this_. He's been fighting and sparring every day for _years_. I have only months, myself."

Leliana sighed, releasing Solona and dropping her hands to her lap. "I know, Solona. But knowing it in theory and seeing it happen are two different things entirely. I am so used to you being all right when you do take a wound in battle. I've become accustomed to seeing you bruised, of course, but even that can be difficult to stomach at times."

"I know what you mean," Solona said, reaching for Leliana's cheek, smiling as Leliana pressed herself into the caress. "When you were nearly killed in Orzammar, laid out on that bed, bruised and bloody… I don't think I've ever been so scared, nor so relieved as when Wynne said you would recover without further incident."

"But after tomorrow, you will be able to meditate, to channel your magic, and I won't have to watch this happen again," Leliana affirmed, seeming to almost shake off her worry before rising and moving to the wardrobe in the corner. Solona followed her, kneeling and unlacing the bard's silk shoes.

"Maker, but I do love seeing you like that," Leliana murmured, pulling Solona's attention up. In Leliana's eyes, Solona saw a deep desire. The bard wanted to _take_ her – she nearly always did after battle.

Smirking, Solona continued her chore. "Interesting," was all she said.

She worked in silence after that, teasing Leli a little as she unlaced her bodice, pushing the dress over the bard's hips before helping her to step out of it. Hanging the dress, she turned to find Leliana with that fire even brighter in her blue eyes. Delicate, alabaster fingers touched Solona's bloodied tunic, trailing from the mage's stomach up to her breasts, tweaking a nipple through the fabric. Solona hissed as Leliana continued higher, unbuttoning the collar before trailing down to the mage's wrists, unbuttoning those as well. Then her shirt was being drawn over her head.

The rest of their clothing was drawn off similarly slowly, until they both stood utterly naked in the candle and firelight, goose bumps pimpling their skin. Reaching out, Solona drew Leliana close, their skin meeting and settling against each other with an almost audible sigh of familiarity. She leaned down slowly, Leliana's face tipping up so their lips could meet.

But just as they were finally about to kiss, Solona suddenly burst into laughter, completely ruining the mood they had built over the last few minutes.

"What?" Leliana asked, a hint of petulance in her voice.

Solona just shook her head, taking Leliana's face in her hands and kissing her quickly, though gingerly. "I just figured out why you're so sad I broke my _nose_ , specifically!"

Leliana furrowed her brows. "You did?"

Solona grinned. "You can't ride my face," she stated bluntly.

She was rewarded with fire blazing across Leliana's cheeks. "That is _not_ why!"

Solona's grin just spread even wider, and she cackled again. "Yes! Yes it is!"

"I was _also_ worried," she reaffirmed in a small voice, her lips pouted.

"Oh, Leli," she murmured, drawing the bard close and cradling her. "I know, my love. But… you have to admit that I am absolutely right, and it is absolutely hilarious!"

Leliana seemed to grin a little, entirely against her will. Laughing, she shook her head, prodding Solona toward the bed. "Lie down, jester," she quipped. "You have more than your mouth to work with, and you are absolutely going to pay for that outburst."

A shiver running down her spine, Solona rushed to comply.

* * *

The coronation was to be held in roughly a week, taking advantage of all the nobles of the land being in the city for the winter. Zevran knew Alistair would need to approve everything they had arranged, but he had been entrusted to do the planning on the warden's behalf, and Zevran was doing his best to anticipate Alistair's needs. He was… honored, that Alistair was serious about the elf being his most trusted advisor, even if it was first uttered as a joke with a smirk. And he took seriously this charge, this new responsibility. He would not let his king down.

It was the first time he had a king to protect and to serve, and not to kill.

Now, though, the planning was done for the day. Alistair was bedded down, likely completely confused as to what to do with that gigantic bed and those gigantic rooms. A pity he didn't have a woman to keep them warm with him. The rest of their party had been moved from Eamon's estate to the royal palace, as their place was with the Grey Wardens, and Solona would not be away from her brother. The palace staff was scurrying about like ants with a stick in the anthill, preparing everything for a full house and a new lord. The day, or his part of the day, at least, was done, and he could finally retire.

Following an elven man, Zevran entered his and Wynne's rooms with a heavy sigh. It was opulent, lavishly decorated in reds and golds. But his eyes hardly took in any of it, landing almost immediately upon the resplendent figure of his lady love. Wynne had been present for most of the planning of the coronation, actually, only coming to this room ten minutes ago. But he was not allowed to _touch_ her, to have her murmur in his ear, to touch him in that special way she did that made him feel like more of a man than any woman ever had before – not in polite company, in any event. He was not lacking in her presence this day, but he was lacking in letting her know exactly how he felt about her presence. It had been maddening.

"Ah, my love, you are lovelier by the day," he sighed, letting the servant see himself out as he crossed the room to the senior enchanter. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he kissed her deeply, pulling back after a moment and just enjoying the smile she gave him.

"I cannot wait until your hair grows back," she murmured after a time, caressing his face with her hand. "I tire of being reminded at every turn how close I came to losing you."

"I had long hair during the insufferable Ferelden summer, and now I find myself with snow on the ground and no hair on my head. Believe me, my dear – I miss the hair, as well. But let it not be a reminder of how you almost lost me, and instead be a reminder of what excellent, loving friends we have. Were it not for Alistair and Leliana's mercy, I would never have met you. Were it not for her love and friendship, I would never have been the recipient of those miraculous Ashes."

"This is true," Wynne conceded, laying her head upon his shoulder. "I thank the Maker I didn't have to see you as she found you. I believe that would haunt my nightmares."

"Come, come, let us speak of more pleasant things, my dearest Wynne," he said after a moment, pulling away from her. "If my nose is correct, you had them draw a bath, and I cannot _wait_ to share such a thing with you."

Smirking, she pulled away completely. "I could feel you undressing me with your eyes all day, Zevran. It made me… well, let's just say I felt the need to get _clean_."

Smirking, he caught her around the waist from behind, immediately running his lips up the soft contour of her neck. "I think you are going to be getting dirtier before you get clean, my dearest Wynne," he murmured, delighting in the shiver down her spine at his words.

"Is that so?" she asked, not entirely coyly as her breathing hitched with the nip of his teeth.

"It is most _assuredly_ so," he almost growled, fingers finding the lacing of her bodice. In short order, he had her naked, almost crying out when she didn't even bother to likewise undress _him_ before withdrawing his manhood from his trousers and demanding he make love to her then and there.

Laying her back upon the bed and doing as he was told, he couldn't help but internally smirk as the thought came to him. _I am nothing if not obedient_.


	61. Freedom

Solona fingered her phylactery. It was newer than the others, less dusty, the blood inside somehow shining more clearly. It had made less than a year before, a new one being needed once she smashed the one that had been made when she was five and first came to the Circle.

She was no longer five now. She was legally outside the Chantry's control –or she would be, as soon she smashed this, so no one could ever track her down should they be of a mind. Furrowing her brows in determination, she prepared herself to flick the glass upon the stone on which she knelt, when Max caught her attention. He was sniffing at another phylactery – old, with a lot of dust gathered on it – and whining slightly.

"What is it, Max?" she asked him, scooting over to see what he'd found. Picking up the small glass vial, she saw that it had some writing upon it that was similar to the writing on her own. Blowing the dust away, she saw it said "Wynne" with the elder mage's induction year. Eyes widening, Solona quickly stashed the vial in her pocket, hoping the templar who had escorted her down here was not looking. She then stood, getting his attention, and nodded.

"Just one thing left to do," she announced, before dropping the glass vial of her own phylactery at her feet.

The tinkling of the breaking glass was like music to her ears. She'd done this once before, but she had been unable to appreciate it – she had been far too busy swimming through the frigid waters of Lake Calenhad at the time. This time, she simply stood, well past when the sound had faded, relishing the moment and making sure she appreciated that _this_ was the moment of her true freedom. She was now untraceable.

Opening her eyes, she gave the templar another stiff nod before striding forward, the remnants of glass crunching under her boot as she went.

In the main hall of Denerim's Chantry, she found Alistair waiting. He insisted upon wearing simple clothes, designed for comfort and with the need for combat in mind, with a woolen cloak he could easily shed should the need arise. His coronation had not yet occurred, and so he wore no crown or other adornment aside from the signet ring they had rescued from Cailan's corpse back at Ostagar weeks before. He simply had guards in the livery of the king stationed inside and outside the door, with Zevran ever-present at his elbow. The elf had taken his new office very seriously, and had sworn an oath to advise Alistair in his duties and to protect the king's life with his own.

Now, the king turned, his face lighting up when he saw his fellow warden. "I take it you've done what you came here to do?"

She nodded, smiling, feeling the weight fall off her shoulders a little more with each breath. "Yes, I have. How could you tell?"

He snorted. "You look like a child who's gotten away with something, Solona."

She laughed out loud at that. "I _feel_ like I've gotten away with something!" Calming, she clapped him on the shoulder. "Honestly, I just feel immense relief. _I_ know I am legally outside of Chantry control, but that wasn't actually true until this moment…"

Smiling, he cupped her hand on his shoulder. "It's done."

"It is," she agreed, grinning. "Come on, let's go get Leli."

They found Leliana kneeling in prayer. Hanging back, Solona took in the scene. Leliana hadn't been particularly religious or pious during their journey, even though the mage had first met her in Chantry robes. Part of it was that Leliana was a consummate actor, throwing herself into whatever role she chose to play. The Chantry Sister role was her safe haven from her captors, and it was also her salvation from her past. It was the most powerful of roles because she had desperately wanted to disappear into it, to truly _become_ it, until it was no mere role. But joining the wardens had made it clear to her that it was simply far too ill-suited to her nature. She was a warrior, in her own way, and she couldn't just drop that part of her past. She could, however, find her redemption using her skills for a different purpose, a better purpose, from what she learned them for.

And so Leliana had not outwardly practiced her religion in some time, though every once in a while she closed her eyes to send off a silent prayer, or would wax philosophical about the Chantry when lying in Solona's arms. And once or twice, Leliana had spoken of her vision, of seeing Solona's face before ever having met her, and of the altered vision when she passed through the fires in the Gauntlet. They both wondered what it meant, and when she would know it was time to fulfill it. They conveniently left unsaid what they would do should they need to part. Solona did not know a lot about the Seekers of Truth, only that they and the templars sprouted from the same Order back when the Chantry formed, and therefore they were not to be trusted outright by any mage.

Taking in the scene before her, Solona realized that Leliana was not the only one praying. Two others kneeled alongside her lover, dressed in armor of black, verily bristling with weapons. But the armor was unmarked from the vantage Solona had.

They seemed… familiar with Leliana. Solona was not sure how she knew this. Perhaps it was that they all murmured the last few lines of a section of the Chant of Light together, or their similar posture, or perhaps it was the closeness of the three of them as they prayed. Whatever it was, Solona's suspicion was confirmed very quickly as the trio ended their prayers, finding their feet and turning to find Solona, Alistair, and Zevran waiting.

"Oh, I am sorry, I did not realize you had finished your errand, my love," Leliana apologized, rushing forward with a smile and accepting the mage's arm around her shoulder.

Solona barely realized the bard had spoken, her attention fully caught by the giant white Eye of Truth emblazoned across the metal cuirasses of the armored figures. One of the Seekers was a young, pale-skinned man, his hair cropped close to his skull, and his dark eyes scowling. A moment's consideration told Solona that it was _she_ he disapproved of, his eyes fixed upon her arm around Leliana's shoulder.

The other, her short black hair shining in the morning sunlight, had honey-brown eyes affixed to the mage, as well. Her eyes were narrowed thoughtfully, however, taking in details about Solona and Leliana the likes of which the mage could only imagine. She then stepped forward, a hand extended.

"You must be the Commander of Ferelden's Grey Wardens." Her voice was low for a woman, strong and steady, the voice of a woman who knew exactly her abilities, as well as her place in the world. "I am Cassandra Pentaghast, of the Order of Seekers, and Right Hand to Divine Beatrix."

Solona eyed the extended hand for a moment before releasing Leliana's shoulder and taking it. "Well met," she said simply, eyes shifting briefly to the silent young man at her side who still scowled at her. "I take it you made friends with Leliana while I conducted my business?"

"You can call it for what it was, Warden," she replied, her eyes narrowing just so. "You are wary of us. I understand. It is true, we are in this country because it was rumored the wardens of Ferelden finally took a mage recruit, almost upon the eve of Ostagar. But you are well within your rights to destroy your phylactery. You cannot very well fight a Blight if any templar with an agenda decides to visit this vault and hunt you down." She paused, then, "And if you _did_ decide to become a threat, I would find you even without your phylactery."

Solona didn't know what to do with that information. The woman was ever so serious, and yet the mage did not feel at all threatened. The Seeker was merely stating facts. Luckily, Leliana interjected for her. "Solona, this other is Daniel, Cassandra's apprentice. They will be here for the winter, as will everyone in the city. She…"

Cassandra stepped in. "Your companion has many questions, Warden. We offer what answers we have," she stated simply. Her voice was colored heavily by a Nevarran accent, but Solona also heard hints of Ferelden as well as the colors of Orlais present in Leliana's voice.

"I see." Solona still did not know how to respond. She was… incredibly wary of these two, as Cassandra had said. Their Order's willingness to apprehend templars as well as rogue mages, and their deep respect – as an Order – for the mages of the Circle, were the only things keeping Solona from simply walking away before they became a threat. "Well, we really must be going. It was… good to meet you, Daniel, Cassandra."

"And you as well," the Seekers both answered with a nod, the woman's warm brown eyes seeming much darker than they ought to, shadowed under her lids.

They left in silence. She and Leliana dared not speak of the bard's vision in the open like this, but they were surely both thinking of it. How could they not? The vision showed the Eye of Truth, and here they met Seekers bearing that Eye. Alistair and Zevran did not even know of it, as close as they all were to each other. They simply eyed each other a few times, Leliana finally changing the silent subject by asking if Solona had accomplished her chore.

"It is done," Solona answered. "I also did something else…" Trailing off, she pulled out Wynne's vial, eyeing Zevran meaningfully. "Max found Wynne's."

The elf's eyes flashed. "You found hers? She could be free as you are?"

She nodded. "Indeed. But it's her choice. I didn't want to make it for her. Were she apprehended outside of my custody without a phylactery, she would be in a great deal of trouble. It is her decision to make if she wishes to take on that burden or not, not mine."

"I see," Zevran murmured, his eyes not leaving the vial of blood, the light of the morning shining through it in an almost beautiful way.

Making a quick decision, Solona held it out to him. "Will you take this to her?"

He accepted it almost immediately, holding it reverently for a moment before tucking it away in a pouch on his belt. "I will make sure to allow her the decision," he answered simply.

Smiling, Solona looked ahead, taking Leliana's hand. "So much to do today." Her expression fell.

"Oh?" Alistair asked.

Leliana answered for her. "Today, we find out what happened to Revka, why we have not seen her since the day we arrived."

Solona shook her head. "Come on. We have things to do before that."

* * *

"You do not like that I was speaking with the Seekers." It was not a question. Leliana _knew_ that Solona was upset about it. She was not stupid.

Solona sighed, gesturing helplessly as she stared out the lavish windows of their room. "I do not like being faced with your vision so soon. Are we doomed to not have even a moment's peace together? Not even a single year before events in your vision come to fruition?"

"I know, my love," Leliana said, nodding her understanding. "But we do not really know what this means. And I confess, I am intensely curious. And Cassandra has _answers_ , from the lips of one who _is_ a Seeker, rather than a scholar of the Chantry, who only knows their role _in theory_. The order is… highly secretive."

"They track down apostates, Leliana."

"They keep the Chantry and templars stable. They also have a deep respect, as an order, for the Circle. They keep a balance, Solona. They seek out the highest truth, not just the truth that people tell themselves. They employ authority when needed, diplomacy when needed, and violence when neither of the other two produce results. I am… incredibly suited to that kind of thing."

"I suppose that's true," Solona conceded, finally turning to face the bard. "But still I do not relish the idea of being anywhere but by your side."

"And yet you have an extraordinary sense of duty for someone who has not been raised with it," Leliana countered, raising an eyebrow from her spot by the vanity.

Solona frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Solona," Leliana said flatly, giving her a sardonic look. "You carry out your duty – to your order as well as to your companions – as though your very life depended on it. You are wonderfully kind and compassionate. Your duty comes from _there_. That is… unprecedented, truth be told."

Solona smirked a moment, then grew somber once more. "But without you by my side…"

"I know, my love," Leliana murmured, finally getting up and coming to her lover. "Often the hero has an unseen hero by his or her side. I am that for you, and you are that for me, though not unseen. But I have some part to play beyond helping you through the Blight. I have seen it, just as I have seen the Blight and your role in it."

Solona wrapped her arms around Leliana's waist, looking down at her lovingly, and yet a little sadly. "Perhaps I simply do not like having another unknown. Though, I admit that this _seems_ to spell that _you_ , at least, survive this Blight and become a Seeker, or something similar, doing what you can to change the Chantry from the inside. My fate is less certain…"

Leliana merely blinked rapidly for a moment, completely taken aback. This was the one thing they _always_ danced around, that Solona might not make it through the coming altercation with the archdemon with her life. Solona was very difficult to kill, it was true, but that did not mean she was invincible. The thought of losing Solona was honestly terrifying to Leliana, hence her need to beat it into Solona's head to be more careful with herself.

"I…"

"Shhh, I am sorry, Leli. Let us not speak of it yet. There is nothing we can do for it – either I will survive this, or I will not. I can do nothing but increase my odds of the former by training and learning from Riordan. Just… promise that, should I find my end, you will still go through it. You will do what you must, and you will spread the message we all received in the Gauntlet?"

Leliana was quiet for a short time, considering her lover, actually letting herself think of a future without the tall, dark, tattooed woman in it. Finally, she nodded once, her eyes locked on Solona's. "I shall try, my love. I do not relish the thought, but I shall try, should it come to that. And in every moment leading up to it, I will pray that the Maker keeps you safe. I must be selfish in this, at least. I find it difficult to think of moving on without you, Solona."

Solona gathered the bard up into her arms. "And I, you. But as we already said: I will do what I must. As must you. Should I perish, you still have something to accomplish in this world. And if we both live, then I will do my best to accept the time apart."

Then Solona was gathering up Leliana, depositing her on the bed as she peeled her out of her clothes. The bard was newly-healed, Wynne having taken one look at her phylactery and smashing it upon the stones before murmuring her spells and ridding Leliana and Alistair both of their wounds, right there in the main hall of the palace. Solona took advantage of the lack of need to be gentle, nails raking down the bard's back and teeth nipping at skin as they hurriedly made love, once more finding the need to reaffirm their continued existence in this moment, before venturing out to find Revka.

* * *

"What should we expect?"

Solona shrugged, causing Leliana to smirk a little as they walked. "I honestly have no idea, Leli. Last time they were nice and then watched as the templars dragged me away. Who knows what they'll do this time?"

"And what happens if Revka is in some kind of trouble? If they forced her to marry that templar boy? What do we do?"

Solona shrugged again. "Get her out if she wants out, or let her stay if she wants to stay. I don't really care about any marriage vows if she didn't have a choice in the matter. It's really up to her. I'm not interested in my parents. I'm just here for Revka, and Derek if he's of a mind. Then I'm through with the lot of them."

Leliana nodded, not saying another word as they continued walking. They both wore commoner's clothing, the same they had worn at the Chantry that morning, their well-worn, comfortable boots more than up to the task of keeping the mud of the cobbled streets at bay. As they walked through the streets of Denerim, more than a few people turned to take in the tall, dark visage of Solona, but it was not common knowledge what the tattoo on her face meant, so Leliana knew it was mere curiosity that brought the stares. Solona was more than used to curiosity. Any templars merely looked upon her and then back to what they were doing, as word had been spread that she was the Warden-Commander and legally outside the reach of the Circle. She even had documents from Denerim's Grand Cleric to prove her freedom whenever she entered a new town. Soon enough she would also have Grey Warden documents to prove her freedom as well. Solona was not happy about having to carry them on her person at all times, but she would do what she must to remain free.

Leliana perked up out of her reverie when Solona turned them down a quiet little street. It was dirty, the snow brown and yellow from dumped chamber pots. The smell was terrible, though not out of place in a city like this. The houses themselves were plain but clean, each family obviously taking care to at least keep their own steps clean and tidy. It was the street itself – the public property – that was so rundown and dirty, stinking of human waste.

Halfway down the narrow street, far too narrow for even a single horse with a cart, Solona stopped.

"This is it," she said simply, looking up at the narrow-based, two-story house with the white step and the rickety-looking windows with trepidation marked clearly upon her visage.

Leliana slipped her hand into Solona's, recalling her attention. "It will be all right, Solona," she murmured, smiling up at her lover. "They cannot turn you in, cannot hurt you."

"They can hurt me just fine," Solona countered with a slight smirk. "All they need do is treat me like the monster they think I am. I am not immune to it – that's why I want nothing to do with them. If I truly didn't care, if they couldn't hurt me, then I wouldn't care about seeing them one way or another."

"I… had not thought of it like that," Leliana admitted, frowning slightly.

"It is okay, Leliana. They can hurt me with their lack of feeling, but they cannot hurt me more than they already have. And that _is_ a comfort."

Taking a deep breath, Solona reached out and knocked upon the door.

They heard a holler from somewhere within, before the door was suddenly pulled open, a slightly red-faced, dark-skinned boy huffing as he held the door open while simultaneously holding someone behind him away from the door. Leliana had to stifle a giggle as the boy's eyes travelled from Solona's midsection up to her face, which was obviously far taller than he had been expecting. When his eyes reached the hilts of the weapons upon Solona's back, they got wide. He gulped, terror written plainly upon his face.

"Are you come to kill us?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Derek, she's our _sister_!" The person behind him turned out to be Revka, now shoving past him and grabbing hold of Solona's hand. "Come on. Save me from the madness in here, I beg you!"

The look on Solona's face as she was hauled inside was thoroughly entertaining, though the fear on the boy's face was concerning. Leliana knew Solona could deal out death right and left when she needed to, but seeing the powerful mage through another's eyes – eyes she had so recently held herself regarding magic-users – was troubling on a very deep level to the bard.

Leliana stepped past the boy with a quick "pardon me," following her lover as Revka pulled her down a narrow hallway. It opened into a poorly-lit, though very tidy, common room. A pot simmered over the fire in the hearth, a sturdy-looking, plain set of scrubbed wooden table and chairs in the center of the room. Currently spread out upon it were some fine looking materials, no doubt a dress or some other piece of sewing Revka had been working on.

"What is she doing here?!"

The woman in the corner, who had been chopping vegetables on another sturdy-looking chopping table by the sole window, drew Leliana's attention. She stood now with a look of rage upon her face, mixed in with not a small amount of fear as her eyes took in the rather severe appearance of her eldest daughter.

"I came to check on you, Revka," Solona finally murmured, barely looking at her mother before looking down upon her sister.

"I am fine, Solona. We heard the Landsmeet was settled, that your fellow warden, Alistair, is to be our king. I knew you would come quickly after that was resolved." She hung her head slightly as she added quietly, "I was not permitted to visit you again."

Leliana smiled. Revka had known her sister for such a short time, and yet had such faith in her already. The bard was pleased to know that the girl's trust was _not_ misplaced.

"You will not take my daughter and pervert her with your _magic_!" The woman now marched forward, hands clenched into fists at her sides while staring up into Solona's face. She grabbed at Revka, shoving her out of the way.

Solona merely frowned. "I am your daughter, as well, woman! Or have you forgotten those five years in Lothering? How I was the only child you had? How I came to find you here once I was grown, only to have you turn me in to the templars? This mark upon my face is because of _you_! They shaved my head and threw me to the demons, hoping I would not make it through my Harrowing! I nearly died because of you! I am permanently marked _because of you_!" Here, she paused, breathing heavily. Leliana remained by the wall, knowing she could intervene should things further deteriorate.

"And now my own brother looks at me with eyes full of fear, also because of you. I am your daughter, but you are no parent, woman. So I came to check on my sister, and make sure no harm or punishment had come to her, and that she was allowed to leave should she so choose."

"You cannot take my daughter," the woman repeated, less anger-filled and more resigned. "She is promised to marry Orson, and _will_ do so."

Solona frowned again, turning to Revka. "Is that what you wish, Revka?"

"I…" Revka looked to her mother for a moment before turning her gaze down. "No. I cannot stand him. But I do not know what else there is for me should I leave this place."

"Come to the palace with us," Solona said, cutting off her own mother with a withering glare.

An idea struck Leliana. "You are a talented seamstress! I am sure the king has need of those with skill," she offered.

Solona's visage finally cracked into a brief smile. "Yes. Alistair would employ you without hesitation."

Leliana couldn't help but notice the faint softening of the older woman's features at this. It disgusted the bard. It was suddenly a little bit okay _now_ because her daughter would be working for the king? Despicable.

Revka, however, looked like a child the morning of the winter solstice, the gift she had been hoping for all year finally in her lap. "Truly?! Oh, that would be _wonderful_!" She even jumped a little, the smile on her face bright and clear, utterly guileless in her joy.

"I… you cannot take my daughter from me," the woman repeated, though far more dejected than enraged now.

Solona had no sympathy. "I am not taking your daughter away. _Both_ of your daughters are _leaving_ you, of their own accord. If she decides to come back, she may do so. If she decides to marry that blowhard, she may do so. But it will forevermore be _her_ choice!"

Silence was the only thing that followed that proclamation. The boy continued to cower if Solona so much as looked his way, however, and after a few moments, she huffed, "Meet us outside when you have your things, Revka," and stomped out into the street. Leliana followed on her heels. This was already an interesting day, and they had not even had their midday meal.

* * *

Alistair turned from his conversation with Zevran and Wynne, seeing that Solona and Leliana had returned. With them walked Revka, clinging tightly to a bundle, wonder on her face as she looked about the throne room. He smiled, knowing just how grand this all seemed to someone of her upbringing, for it had been grand to him the first time, as well.

His fellow warden led them to him, addressing him without preamble. "Alistair, I have a favor to ask of you."

Cocking his head to the side a little, he regarded her for a moment. "Anything within my power. What do you need, Solona?"

Nodding over to her sister, Solona asked, "Will you employ my sister? She is a talented seamstress, and can take care of herself, and I know she's not of-age yet, but-"

"Yes," he said, without hesitation, cutting the mage off. "Of course! Put that away, Revka, I don't need to see it to know you're talented. I've seen the robes the Grand Cleric wears, remember? I know you did a good deal of that work. And I won't require much that fancy. I'm much more… practical, as you can see," he finished, indicating his plain clothing.

Revka, in the middle of unrolling her work for him to see, smiled widely, yet somehow bashfully, and curtseyed. "Thank you, your Highness."

He groaned, rolling his eyes. "I'm just going to have to get used to it, aren't I?"

Solona snorted. "Yes, you are, your Highness."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Enough of _that_ , or it'll be 'Warden-Commander' this and 'Warden-Commander' that."

"Enough," Leliana giggled, finishing with helping Revka to pack up her bundle once more. "You are confusing the poor girl. Come, Revka, let us find who you should speak with. You are the king's personal tailor, now. Surely _someone_ in the palace will be upset about it…"

Laughing, as he well knew that to be true, as a former servant himself, Alistair clapped his friend on the back as he addressed her sister. "Indeed. Let us not keep whoever that is waiting!"


	62. The Proposal

The sword came down with almost bone-crushing force.

"Haha! I have you, Solona!" Alistair cried, his face lit up like a little boy's.

Elissa delighted in the look on him. She was really just visiting the palace today, but she seemed to have done that nearly every day since the Landsmeet, ten days now. Alistair was completely healed – as well as herself and Leliana – thanks to Wynne's newfound freedom from her phylactery. As Elissa understood it, she hadn't initially been planning on having her freedom, was not entitled to it as the Warden-Commander was, but Solona had taken it upon herself to surreptitiously steal Wynne's phylactery, and the elder mage smashed it upon the stones once Solona offered it to her. It had been a private moment, of course, but Elissa could imagine that the senior enchanter was very grateful to be able, finally, to heal them all properly, as she had been longing to do for days.

And now they took advantage of that healing, sparring several hours a day, building up their strength and furthering their skill. They practiced with heavy wooden instruments, of course, save when they wished to practice with a particular blade. The practice weapons was advantageous in two ways: one, it saved them when they were tired and made mistakes, also saving them the need to wear armor of any kind; and two, it served to bulk up their musculature, as the heavy wooden weapons were heavier than the slimmer weapons of steel they used in battle.

Elissa sat in her own tunic and trousers, hair braided back and up so as to be kept out of the way, awaiting her turn to show off her skills. She had not yet sparred with anyone but Fergus, ashamed as she was for how out-of-practice she had become while Howe's prisoner. But at Fergus's urging, and at the encouragement of Solona and Alistair, she had decided that today she should attempt to spar with someone other than her brother. They were all friends here, and would not judge her for her inferior skill.

For the moment, however, she watched as Alistair did not, in fact, have anything _about_ Solona, despite his outburst. The mage sidestepped his blade before striding inside of his reach, getting uncomfortably close with a wicked grin before snaking a foot behind his ankle and putting him on the floor. Her sword came up, holding still an inch from his throat.

He sighed heavily. "I yield," he muttered. Solona grinned once more, stepping back and allowing her fellow warden to find his feet.

"Why does she not help him to his feet?" Elissa queried of Zevran, who stood nearby with Solona's sister, Revka, watching as Leliana and Sten in another part of the giant workout room. "Is that not the honorable way to do things?"

Zevran smiled fondly. "Because Leliana taught them in no uncertain terms that the hand that reaches to help you often gets an unencumbered opportunity to hurt you," he answered, only serving to confuse the Cousland Lady further.

"I… what?"

Solona was now upon them, answering for Zevran as she took a towel offered by her sister. "She would help us to our feet only to put us squarely on our rumps once more."

"Why would she do that when you are simply sparring among friends?"

"Because," a soft Orlesian accent floated to her, stealing her attention away from the tall, dark-skinned warden. "It is an important lesson to learn. _And_ , while they didn't know it, they were both trying to find some clever way to put me on the ground. I merely cut them to the chase." She smiled, taking another towel from Revka and mopping her brow. "It certainly taught them to stick to what they're better at – which is _not_ outsmarting an Orlesian bard."

_A bard? I hadn't known that… Are not they much better than whores?_

Alistair snorted. "That's the truth if I ever heard it. They're the brains," he said, pointing to Leliana and Zevran. "Me and Solona are the brawn. Us and our good friend Sten here."

Sten merely hummed, looking down upon them all. Truth be told he rather frightened Elissa, but the others seemed to trust him implicitly, and he had never done anything to show himself hostile. She was merely unused to him, and remembered the frightening stories told of the qunari savages a little too well with him so near.

"Alistair, if you will?" Leliana suddenly asked, holding out a hand in offer to the exercise mat.

Alistair groaned. "Do I have to? I am the king, you know – I could refuse, have you confined to your room. And then hide."

Leliana merely giggled, hefting the practice daggers in her hands as she backed into the space. Sighing, Alistair followed, sword rising.

"Why does he not wish to spar with Leliana?"

Solona looked surprised. "Have you not seen her fight? The woman is _scary_. To see all that scary coming at you…"

"And yet you sleep in the same bed with her," Zevran quipped, winking.

As the elf and the mage devolved into joking insults, Elissa tried to hide her blush of embarrassment. In truth, she tried _not_ to watch Leliana. The Orlesian made the Cousland girl feel… inferior in nearly every way. The woman walked with a grace most noblewomen had to _learn_ , she laughed easily, was intelligent, could play the lute and sing, could speak several languages, and to top it all off she apparently fought better than the lot of her companions. How was it that she was not a warden herself?

But that was all very silly. Leliana was good at all these things, yes, but her saving grace was that she did it all without seeming to realize how perfect she came across. Now that Elissa knew her sordid past, it began to make a strange kind of sense. The former bard was atoning for her sinful past. Elissa could at least see why the redhead would only present the positive aspects of herself to the world, using the skills she'd learned to serve a just cause. It made the Cousland girl feel a little better about herself, at least. After all – _she_ had not sold her body in order to get ahead in life. Her honor remained intact.

Reassuring herself with that knowledge, Elissa settled in to watch this woman fight. Alistair couldn't beat his commander, but surely he could beat this spritely – and _small_ – redhead?

The battle didn't last long. Leliana was fast and fierce, delivering glancing blows to Alistair designed to throw him off-balance. He seemed to be getting frustrated, though, finally tossing the heavy wooden sword aside and using his hands. It proved to be a bad decision. He did get Leliana in his grip, lifting her bodily and hugging her close to incapacitate her arms. Elissa honestly thought it had worked, and that the bard would yield… only to gasp aloud as Leliana lifted both legs, wrapping them around his waist in an almost loving way. Alistair's face showed he knew he made a mistake just as Leliana reared back, her forehead crashing into his and overbalancing him.

He let go as he fell, and by the time he was flat on his back, Leliana was straddling his chest, her wooden dagger at his throat.

The image before her was… difficult to swallow. It made Elissa feel all sorts of things. Chief among them was that she didn't at all like the bard being so close and so familiar with Alistair, using her body so… freely. Perhaps her loyalties were still as fluid as her body apparently was? Alistair was the king, after all. Imagine how much power Leliana would have at her disposal if she were bedding not only the Warden-Commander of Ferelden, but also its king?

She had no time to think on it longer, as Leliana was now on her feet. Alistair rose to his own feet, scowling.

"I'm tired of being beaten," he grumped.

"You wish us to coddle you?" Solona retorted with a smirk. "Treat you like a wee little boy? You're out of practice, that's all. And you don't have your shield. With your shield, you're unstoppable. The point of practicing without it is to make you so when you _don't_ have it."

He sighed. "Yes, I know. It's just… annoying."

"Well," Elissa said, not being aware she would do so before she was on her feet. "Spar with me."

"What?"

She colored a little. "I haven't had a chance yet, and I am terribly out of practice. You're tired, but I'm sure you could beat _me_ with no problems."

"An interesting strategy… she boasts of her _lack_ of skill instead of having more skills than she possesses," Zevran quipped. "We shall see if it works!"

Alistair merely smirked. "Very well, my Lady," he said with a half-bow, retrieving his sword from the ground as she took up her own. It was indeed very heavy, but she had become somewhat used to it while practicing with Fergus. Hefting it in front of her, she took up position opposite the king.

He opened, slashing his sword up toward her belly. Jumping back, she brought her sword down, batting his away. He grinned, pressing the attack, using the momentum from her block to swing around and instead come at her from above. She blocked that as well, letting the weight of the weapon carry her forward as she went on the offensive.

Back and forth they traded blows like this, every two or three trading offense for defense or vice versa. After only a few minutes she was sweaty, breathing hard. Her shoulder ached, her fingers nearly numb on the sword's grip. She realized in that moment the one thing Fergus always did for her, likely out of his nearly-inborn gentlemanliness: he always gave her a moment to catch her breath. It wasn't much, but it was enough to breathe properly, change the grip on her weapon, and then press the attack. Alistair was doing no such thing. He, too, was breathing hard, but was not nearly as winded as she, nor as sweaty. She tried not to think on it overlong, as she didn't want her embarrassment distracting her, but it was… difficult.

And proved, indeed, to be a distraction. The muscles in his arms bunched, and then suddenly her wrist was caught and she was pulled flush against him, well inside the reach of his blade, but also inside the reach of _hers_. She stared up into his deep brown eyes for a moment that seemed to stretch out into eternity. She could feel the power gathered in the muscles hidden by his clothes. He seemed to burn with a fire inside of him, the skin of his hand warmer than it ought to be. His breath, too, was warm, smelling of the mint they all chewed after their meals, as well as some nebulous scent that she would forever associate only with him.

His eyes, though… They were so expressive. She felt she could see into his very soul, the old saying about eyes being windows coming to mind. But what she saw through them – affection and desire and other things she had no name for, all mixed into one look – was something that made her heart squeal.

She had no time to process it, however, as suddenly his lips were covering hers, the hand holding his sword now resting on her left hip. It was a rather chaste kiss, lips only. But still they sought hers out with an intensity she would never have imagined, molding hers against his as he moved against her.

It was a very pleasant first kiss.

Then he pulled back, his eyes opening, showing a slight panic. "I… I'm sorry, my Lady," he breathed, "I shouldn't have presumed-"

He got no further, as Elissa dropped her sword and threw her arms around his neck, pulling him down and pressing her lips against his once more. His sword clattered to the ground as well, and then he was kissing her back. His tongue sought entrance to her mouth, and she allowed it as his arms wrapped around her waist, holding her against him so tightly she could feel his arousal beginning to stir. All the sensations were a bit overwhelming, but she was determined to keep pace, to not lose this contact with this wonderful, strong, amazing man-

A sharp whistle reminded her that they were, in fact, _not_ alone in the room. Solona, Zevran, Revka, and Leliana all hooted and hollered in their own way – Solona loudest and rowdiest of all. As Alistair guiltily pulled away, letting go of her, the others merely snickered and exited the room, Sten trailing behind, making noise about leaving the two of them alone.

"I… I'm sorry, my Lady," he began again, now fully separated from her. "I should not have presumed, and certainly not with an _audience_ …"

"Your Highness… Alistair," she amended, walking forward and reaching for his hand. "I… I did not mind. If you couldn't already tell."

He smirked, raising an eyebrow. "It didn't seem like you did," he allowed.

She giggled, threading her fingers through his. "We do not have an audience now. Has it lost its appeal without them?"

His eyes glinted as he closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her flush against him once more. Her heart beat a rapid tattoo, threatening to beat itself right out of her chest, as he growled, "No, my Lady. In fact, I believe I am only _more_ impassioned to have you to myself."

* * *

Alistair couldn't get the dumb grin off his face. It had only been a day since he and Elissa had first kissed – and then kissed quite a lot more – and every time he thought about it he got what he knew was a goofy grin on his face. It was now mid-morning, and he was looking forward to her visit.

"You are much like a boy, Alistair," Zevran teased, smirking from his place across the desk.

Alistair felt the heat upon his cheeks, causing their other companion to chuckle. "It is all right to be happy, Alistair," Wynne soothed. "You've never experienced the beginnings of love in quite this way. Most young men experience it much sooner. So it makes sense that you are acting like a boy." She paused, then smirked, the expression matching Zevran's. "And you _are_ acting like a boy."

Alistair's cheeks heated further. "I swear, Wynne, sometimes I can't decide if you're like an older sister or a mother with how you mock me and guide me in turns."

"I am both, dear child. I am an aunt."

All three of them chuckled at that.

"So when will you ask for her hand?" Zevran wanted to know.

Alistair almost choked. "Her… hand?"

Zevran gave him a patient look, like working out a simple problem with a child. "She is not some commoner or servant you can woo and bed, Alistair. She is not free to do the things your previous lovers have done. You are the king, and she is the daughter and sister to one of the most powerful nobles in the kingdom aside from _you_. You cannot simply become lovers, Alistair. You must be married… or you must leave her alone to seek out a different husband."

"I… But…"

"He is right, Alistair," Wynne said, cutting off whatever complaint he was trying to make. Honestly, he wasn't even sure what his complaint was, but surely the situation warranted one? "You cannot court her as you did your servant friend, nor as you did Morrigan. You cannot just let it happen – you must be married, to _someone_. At least you _like_ Lady Cousland, unlike Anora."

"That is true…" Alistair admitted, scrubbing a hand through his lengthening bristles. "But I've only known her a couple of weeks."

"Royal families have been perpetuated on less," Zevran reminded him. "And they have been built on far less affection."

"But… We just kissed for the first time _yesterday_! I know almost nothing about her! And you're asking me to ask her to marry me? What if she decides she hates me three months in? What if I can't stand how she sleeps?" _What if it's true, and I can't give her children?_ The silent thought halted all others momentarily.

"The fact that you are concerned at all about how she feels about _you_ is proof enough that you will make it work," Wynne comforted. "And more than one royal couple have had detached quarters. If she snores, you can always have separate beds," she finished with a small, genuinely warm smile.

"Besides," Zevran added, "we are not asking you get married tomorrow. Only to think on your intentions. We are merely reminding you that you cannot comport yourself as a common man any longer. You must marry her or leave her be. She cannot marry another should she take a lover. Her maidenhood must remain intact until after she is married. Then she can do whatever she likes, as all noble women do."

"I don't think I've ever been quite so glad I was born a man," Alistair muttered, thinking of how awful it must be to have so much riding on your intact virginity, and your ability to produce children. _Well,_ _ **that**_ _one I know at least_ _ **some**_ _about…_

Anything further on the subject was derailed, however, as Ellia popped her head into the room. "Your Highness? Arl Eamon is calling, along with Teyrn Cousland. They would like to meet with you at your earliest convenience."

"Okay, thank you, Ellia. I'll meet them in the advisor's hall downstairs." She nodded, curtseyed, and left, leaving a somewhat hollow ache inside him. It wasn't that he was in love with her. It was just that she had suddenly turned so cold and professional on him, almost as soon as they had gotten into the city, with no explanation. He had been hoping to rekindle something between them, to see where their friendship might lead. When she had grown so cold, he had tried to confront her about it, but she had said it wasn't appropriate for them to have any relationship outside King and Servant and had adamantly held her ground. When he had learned that both Morrigan and Elissa had seen the argument, he had been so embarrassed that he'd wished he could crawl into a hole somewhere. Two women he'd slept with and hoped for more, and one he could not deny he found attractive, all in the same hall watching him utterly fail at his relationship with all the others.

Just thinking about that moment made him cringe and wish he could go back to the way things had been before he had ever tried his hand at sleeping with girls. One night of fun surely wasn't worth all this strife? _If you do it right, it's far more than one night. Solona and Leliana, Wynne and Zevran… that's what you want, Alistair._

But it was what it was, and he could at least try to do right by Elissa. He would think on it a little more, but she was really his only option at this point, even if he _hadn't_ been incredibly fond of her. He just wanted to make sure it was something she wanted – she wasn't a broodmare, to be traded around to make little heirs for the highest bidder. She was far more than that, and he had a chance to make her marriage far more than that. He just had to not fail like he had with both Ellia and Morrigan.

He was not crazy about his odds…

He left Wynne and Zevran to finish the bookkeeping they had been going over together – and which Alistair himself had been paying very little attention to anyway – and headed down to the throne room. Outside the advisor's hall off to the side, he found Elissa quickly disappearing inside. He thought it odd, as the girl would have shown up to the palace _with_ Eamon and Fergus. But perhaps they were all inside?

Shrugging to himself, he crossed the empty throne room, entering the small advisor's hall to discover that it was, in fact, only Elissa inside.

Turning at the sound of his boot upon the stone, Elissa's face lit up as she saw that it was him who had entered. "Alistair!" she exclaimed, coming to him and pushing herself into his arms immediately. He found her lips on his, and lost himself in the kiss for a moment before he forced himself to pull back.

Smiling down at her, he said the first thing that came to mind. "I'm happy to see you, as well, Elissa."

Her bashful smile nearly stole his heart, calling him to kiss her once more. Ducking his head, he did just that, catching her lips briefly before fully parting from her. He didn't want to be caught being so amorous with her just yet, especially not by her brother. Sure, his friends had been there when he had kissed her the day before, but they had all been through so much together that they were practically family. He knew they would not gossip about it outside of themselves.

Seeing the way Elissa smiled up at him, pushing her hair – worn down and free today – behind her ear, he knew he would ask her for her hand. They just needed to get past whatever this little meeting was, and he would take her for a walk in the garden and bring the matter up. Hopefully he could find a way to ask that allowed her to say no should she choose. Nobody wanted to say no to the king, something he was finding quite frustrating when he wanted people's honest opinions. But Elissa was not a servant; she was accustomed to speaking her mind. Hopefully she would tell him no if that was how she truly felt. Which meant that if she said yes, then she really would mean it.

The thought set his heart racing.

Before they could converse further, another set of boots upon the flagstones called their attention to the door. Fergus walked through first, a glint in his eyes as he regarded them, still standing with their goofy grins, possibly a little closer than would be considered polite. Getting his countenance under order, Alistair stepped away and greeted Fergus and Eamon.

"Good morning, gentlemen. I take it you wanted to meet with myself _and_ Lady Cousland?"

"Yes," Eamon said, taking a seat as Fergus pulled out a chair for his sister. He paused for a moment, taking the two of them in. "Well, we wished to propose something we have been discussing for a few days."

"Oh?" Alistair asked, furrowing his brows a little. What could they possibly have discussed that involved himself and Elissa?

"Well, you two seem to have a growing fondness for each other," began Fergus, looking only at Alistair. "With Anora no longer in the picture, and no stronger suitor available for my sister, we think that Elissa should be your queen."

Alistair was literally speechless, merely blinking dumbly a few times as he processed what he'd just heard. He didn't need to say anything, however, as Elissa was immediately on her feet.

"And you are just proposing this without even _asking_ us first? Just, 'Elissa should be your queen,' as if I'm not in the room?"

"Elissa, please, calm down-"

"Do _not_ tell me to calm down, Fergus! What, I am to be the royal broodmare? Have me pregnant before the Blight is even here? This… dammit, Fergus! This was _going_ somewhere good!"

"I know that, Sister. That is why it is such a perfect match; you _already_ care for each other! Marriages and families – hell, _nations_ – have been built on far less!" Alistair watched wide-eyed as Fergus's temper got the best of him, as he and his sister got almost nose-to-nose in argument. A ridiculous smile fought to break out on the king's face as he imagined them fighting over various things just like this in their youth. His good sense won out, however, and he kept a straight face as they reached a stalemate, nostrils flared as they breathed angrily in each other's faces.

Eamon chose this moment to speak up. "Please remember yourselves in front of your king!" he cried, and they broke apart, both somehow managing to look sheepish… and yet still furious. "Is it that you do not _like_ Alistair, Lady Cousland?"

She furrowed her brow in an expression that almost looked like confusion… _angry_ confusion. "It is not that, your Grace," she began, looking from him to Fergus before finally settling on Alistair himself. "I… am quite _fond_ of you, your Highness-"

"Then I am not sure I understand the problem," Eamon interrupted, not letting her finish her thought. Alistair did not like how forceful he was being. He was… manipulating her, parsing her words incorrectly, and it made an odd sort of protectiveness swell up inside the king.

"If I might say something," Alistair interjected, frowning at Eamon before looking to Elissa. "I… was actually planning to bring up the possibility this afternoon-"

"Well, there you are!" Eamon declared, only to be shushed by Alistair's glare.

"Eamon… get out. You are not making this better. We will figure this out _without_ you."

"I…" The arl looked hurt, and angry, but Alistair merely continued to glare, and so he stood. "Yes, your Highness," he stated, his tone neutral, before stepping out of the room.

"I… will leave the two of you alone to discuss this amongst yourselves," Fergus said, hurrying out of the room on Eamon's tail. It appeared that, given a second to think on it, he wasn't pleased that he had fought with his sister over this.

Alistair sighed. "I am so sorry, my Lady," he began, only to be cut off.

" _You_ didn't do _anything_ ," she huffed, crossing her arms and knitting her brows, glaring at the door. "Neither of them married for state, and yet here they are, meddling in our lives…" Then, suddenly, she looked back to him, uncrossing her arms as her expression softened. "Did you mean it? That you were going to propose?"

Alistair sighed. "Yes, my Lady. Or, I was going to see if you were of a mind, at the very least. I wish they had left this another day, and then we would have no need to feel conflicted over it all. I would understand should you not wish to, especially considering the pressure we are now both under… but I had planned to ask you how you felt about the prospect once this meeting was over."

"If you asked, I would have said yes," she murmured, her head turned down while her eyes remained on him, peeking up through gorgeous, dark, impossibly long lashes.

He swallowed, then suddenly pushed out of his chair, dropping to one knee as he took her hand in both of his. "Will you marry me, my Lady? Be my queen, and let me be your king?" At her furrowed eyebrows, he pressed on. "Pretend the last ten minutes did not happen, and after that kiss I had simply done this and dropped on a knee in front of you. I am simply a man, and you are simply a woman, and I am asking you to make an honest – and very happy – man of me." The words came to him seemingly from nowhere, and yet they felt right. "Will you do me the honor of creating a new family with me, of marrying me?"

The pause was infinitely long, possibly the longest few seconds of his life. But they _did_ end.

"Yes, Alistair. I will be your queen, and you may be my king."


	63. The Wedding Night

The coronation came and went, mostly being pulled off without a hitch. All nobles were already in the city, so it was rather easy to do it quickly. The Grand Cleric crowned Alistair, ending all doubt as to his legitimate claim to the throne. He cut a handsome figure in the full get-up, long fur cloak dyed royal purple and large golden crown upon his head.

He also looked utterly ridiculous - in his words - and refused to wear the whole thing ever again, quickly changing into the elegant yet practical clothing that Revka had begun to make for him.

Then came Elissa's birthday celebration. This, too, went smoothly, a simple affair with the wardens, their companions, and the future queen's friends and family. It was a rather important birthday, as it marked her passing into marriageable age as defined by the laws of the realm.

Which meant she and Alistair could now marry.

"Are you ready, my Lady?"

Elissa turned from the mirror, where she had been gazing upon the stranger contained within. Sure, the figure had her face, but it wore finery the likes of which Elissa had never imagined she would wear, even as the daughter of a nobleman. Her hair was done so elaborately that she had no hope of taking it out herself. Her face was veritably _painted_ with expensive cosmetics imported from Orlais. And there was a quiet panic, a desperate fear, in the figure's eyes.

 _That,_ Elissa recognized as her own. It matched what she felt inside. She was utterly terrified of what the night would bring. Alistair was a good man. When they would steal off together in the gardens and kiss, he awakened feelings in her she'd never before felt. But the act that was expected of her, and his obvious lack of inexperience, was completely daunting. She did not relish having no control over the situation.

But she _did_ want to marry Alistair. He was kind, and compassionate, a formidable warrior who could lead them in the time after the Blight. He had good friends, some even as close as family, and advisors who had the realm's best interests at heart. But despite all that, Elissa could not say that she loved him, not yet. She had known him less than a month, though nearly that at this point, and she had gone through something she would never have imagined she would ever endure. She simply could not love him yet. And yet she was expected to act like the loving, doting wife who fulfilled all of her husband's needs, both in and out of the bedchamber.

"Yes, I am ready," she lied, picking up the front of her skirts and moving away from the mirror. It pained her that her mother and father could not be here for this moment. Her mother would have had some words for her, some advice or encouragement, or merely words of love and support. But she had no one, nothing, merely this servant who was kind but distant, not emotionally invested in this day at all.

And instead of her father, it would be Fergus giving her away, something that stung still, as Fergus had attempted to give her away to Alistair already, without her consent. It would take a long time for her to forgive him for that, even if it ultimately had been what she wanted – just with a little more time to let their romance take hold.

To her surprise, it was not the exit from the room and the entrance to the Chantry where she was led, however. Instead, she found two women seated on the far end of the room in which she had been dressed, speaking together quietly while they awaited her.

"Can I help you, Lady Isolde, Lady Leliana?" she asked, acknowledging both in turn.

"Ah, yes," Isolde stated, leaving her chair and moving forward to stand before Elissa. She smiled, resting her hands on the Cousland girl's shoulders. "You are to be married today, my child. As you are unjustly robbed of your mother, we thought we would offer ourselves as, albeit poor, substitutes."

"Specifically," Leliana spoke, coming to stand next to Isolde, "regarding your wedding night. We do not purport to be able to replace your loving mother in other ways."

"I…" Elissa did not know what to say, a million questions running through her head. "How would _you_ know what is expected?" she blurted, the first thing that made it into a full sentence out of the chaos in her mind. She felt her cheeks heat, but Leliana merely giggled.

"My Lady, Solona is not my first lover. I do prefer women, yes, but… well, let us just say that I have had my fair share of lovers in the past, men and women alike."

Elissa frowned. "I know what is expected of me. I will be fine."

Isolde held her hands up conciliatorily. "We know you know what is expected of _you_. It is our job to tell you what you should expect of _him_."

Elissa frowned more deeply. "He… will come to me… lie with me… what else is there to know?"

Leliana smiled patiently, though not unkindly. "Alistair is a good man, my Lady. He will not merely take his pleasure from you and then roll over for sleep. The marriage act, whether or not you are married, can be pleasurable for all parties involved. In fact, it really _should_ be pleasurable. If it were not, two women would not engage in bed sport nearly as often as Solona and myself."

Elissa stood agape for a moment. Honestly, she had been so worried about that night that she had never for a moment considered it could feel good. She was supposed to enjoy it? _I suppose it makes sense… It does feel very…_ _ **exciting**_ _, when we're kissing in the garden, when I can feel him against me. Why did this never occur to me before?_

"I… thank you, Isolde, Leliana. I… had never considered this."

They both smiled a little slyly. "You are welcome, your Highness," Isolde responded, her smile growing wide, warm. "You are robbed of your family. We only hoped we could ensure that your education and expectations were complete."

"You have helped a great deal. I thank you," she said, truly meaning it, despite her moments of distrusting Leliana over the last few weeks. Clearly, Leliana had eyes only for Solona. Despite that first day when the bard had been rather free with her own body as well as Alistair's, she had made no moves, spoken to him only as a brother. Hopefully, as they learned to care for each other, they could inspire such devotion in the other.

Solona and Leliana would be her model.

"They are ready for you, your Highness," the servant interrupted, coming to stand beside her, leaning down to pick up the train of Elissa's elaborate dress.

"We will speak again at the feast," Isolde said, smiling as she dropped a quick kiss on Elissa's cheek. "Good luck, my queen. Everything will be fine."

Once at the threshold to the Chantry's chapel, Elissa took a deep breath, stepping out to meet Fergus, who was on the other side of the door, before she could change her mind. This might very well be the longest day of her life.

* * *

The wedding ceremony went by in a whirlwind, and before Alistair knew it, he was kissing Elissa very chastely for all the nobles of the kingdom to see. They were then whisked off to the celebratory feast, where, for the first time since becoming a warden, he could not eat more than a few bites. He drank some wine, but held off on partaking of too much, as he did not wish to go to Elissa for the first time as man and wife even approaching drunk.

He could tell she was nervous throughout the feast, picking at her food and avoiding his gaze. When he did catch her eyes, she would smile, but it was… tight… like she was dreading something.

He couldn't for the life of him figure out what she would _dread_. Sure, he was nervous about that night, about being together so intimately when they really didn't know each other all that well, but he'd done that before, and knew enough to make it fun for both of them. Maybe she thought he didn't know a whole lot and wouldn't know what to do with her? Maybe she just dreaded finding out he was terrible in bed?

A time came when the guests were clearly done eating, and Elissa was fetched from her place by his side to "get ready," whatever that meant. Twenty minutes later, he was informed that he should make his way to his bedchambers. His heart skipped a beat as he got up from the table, bidding his guests a good night as they continued the festivities without him.

Ten minutes later, he was at the door leading to his suite, fists clenching rhythmically at his sides while he tried to sort through the feelings in his head. There were just so many of them.

He was king now, the coronation having also gone by in a whirlwind. Two weeks had passed now, and he didn't feel any different. But everybody treated him differently. Well, everyone except his companions. _They_ still called him by name, still made him the butt of their jokes, and still took no pity on him when sparring. He could see the concern in the eyes of the other nobles, as well as his advisors, at their behavior, but it was Alistair's call to make. They had all known him as simply a Grey Warden with whom they had willingly cast their lots months earlier. They laughed and joked with him, unmindful of the glares from other nobles. He vaguely wondered if anyone had received a lecture out of his earshot, but he hoped they would tell whoever had done so to kindly sod off– or at the very least tell him if it happened.

In addition to being king, he was now married, to a girl whom he liked, but who was still mostly a stranger to him. How could he come to know Solona and Leliana so quickly, within the same amount of time he had known Elissa, but not know the girl hardly at all? _Don't be an ass, Alistair_ , he chided himself silently. _Those girls were with you every moment of every day. You fought together, saved each other. Hell, you and Leliana were tortured together. It's hard to get closer to someone than that_. That was true, but it didn't make him feel a whole lot better. The knowledge didn't bring him and Elissa closer, and he didn't know how to remedy that. He couldn't exactly take her on the road with him. They were through with the road now.

Sighing, he steeled himself, opening the door before he could change his mind and go hide in the stables for the night.

Passing into the main bedchamber, he at first could not see Elissa. Furrowing his brows, he took off his jerkin as he called her name.

"Elissa?"

In answer he heard a little squeak from the bed. His eyes landed on a scene that brought a smile to his lips even as it broke his heart a little. Elissa lay under the covers of his enormous bed, hardly making much of a bump in the covers despite her being a rather tall woman. Her eyes peeked out at him, the blankets covering her up to that point from his vantage.

"Oh, Elissa…" Going to the side of the bed, he didn't miss how she flinched at his nearness. "My dear woman. Please, sit up." He held out his hand, and after a moment of staring at it, she accepted it, her smaller hand snaking out from under the blankets and sliding into place on his palm. Pulling her up, he found himself transfixed by the gown she wore.

It was completely sheer, very nearly see-through, and hugged every detail of her body, which was clearly naked underneath. Staring for only a moment, he covered his mesmerized stumble by reaching for the blanket and fluffing it around her, hoping to cover her a little more, both to remove the distraction for himself and to make her feel a little more comfortable.

"This is how they 'got you ready,' I take it? They meant ready for _me_?"

She merely nodded. Her eyes were still wide, an expression of terror written clearly upon her face.

"Elissa… are you afraid of me?" he asked after a moment.

"I…" Her eyes shifted away from him, but not before he caught a brief flash of guilt in them. "I know what is expected of a wife on her wedding night, and I… despite that, I do not know what to expect of _you_."

Taking a chance, he reached for her hand, taking heart in the fact that she let him. "Elissa, I don't pretend to know what it is like to be a noble woman, destined to have all your honor hinge on your virginity. As a man, it is almost shameful to be a virgin, and I experienced this shame for a long time."

Her gaze met his tentatively. "So… it is true? You have done this before?"

His face reddened as he nodded, forcing himself to continue meeting her gaze. "Only a few months ago," he answered her, full of shame. _Why am I full of shame? She hasn't done it at_ _ **all**_.

"Who with?"

He was tempted to ask her to specify which time, but immediately thought better of it. Instead, he dropped his eyes as he answered. "A… woman at the Pearl, here in Denerim."

"Will you… will you tell me about it?"

"You don't want to hear about whores, Elissa-"

"Do not tell me what I do or do not want, Alistair!" she snapped, and when he lifted his gaze once more, he was delighted to find the fire back in her eyes and stance. "Tell me what it was like, please. I know it is different for women, but… Alistair, I desperately want to trust you. This… this would go a long way toward helping."

So he told her. Keeping her gaze, unwilling to look away when she was hanging so desperately on his words, he explained how it went. How the woman had led him to a room, removed their clothes, and then showed him a whole world of fun and pleasure that he couldn't have possibly guessed at before it had happened.

When he was done, she sat with furrowed brows for a moment before asking, "So it was enjoyable for her as well?"

He shrugged. "It seemed to be. I know she was a whore, and therefore paid to make her customers think she enjoyed them, but she… taught me things. I wanted to know how to pleasure a woman, and she taught me how to pleasure _her_. She said other women might like slightly different things, but that some of what she liked was likely to be shared by all. And so far, she's been correct."

"So there have been others since, then?"

_Dammit, Alistair, you are a right idiot!_

He scrubbed his free hand through his hair, fingering the dent left by the infernal crown almost absently as he tried to find a delicate way to answer his new wife without naming names. "I… yes. Only two others. Both people I thought I could care for, but who… didn't care for me. Not how I wanted, anyway."

"The elf girl, right?"

He flinched at that, knitting his brows in confusion. "How… how did you know?"

She smiled a little guiltily. "When I saw you in the hall with her? That Morrigan woman told me. I wasn't sure whether I should believe her, however, as everyone seems to despise her so."

He sighed. "Yes, Morrigan… She is a piece of work. She teased me about Ellia relentlessly. It shouldn't surprise me that she would dangle it over _your_ head, as well."

They fell quiet for a moment before Elissa tentatively spoke once more. "You said there were two. Who was the other?"

"I…" For some reason he was most reluctant to share this one. Perhaps because Morrigan was still around, had such history with him and the rest of his companions. A small voice said it was partly that, but it was mostly that he had actually fallen for Morrigan, and it had ended poorly.

"Please, Alistair. I am your wife, and I have lain with no one. I just want to know who…"

"Morrigan," he choked out, his face flaming in shame.

"Morrigan?" she breathed, pulling her hand back from his.

He nodded, his heart sinking down somewhere near his bellybutton at her reaction. "Yes. Somehow I fell for her, despite her caustic nature, and in return she slept with me once and then tore my heart out and cast it upon the stones of Orzammar."

Much to his dismay, his eyes had heated, and the smallest tear now escaped as he blinked the rest of the wetness away. Batting at it with the back of his hand, he turned, knowing that this final confession had done it, and there would be no way they would be spending the night together. He had, once again, screwed up irrevocably.

"I am sorry, my Lady. I will leave you be. Perhaps in time, you can come to forgive me…"

Much to his surprise, a warm hand alighted on his shoulder, a gentle pressure easing him back down to be seated upon the bed. That hand then traced the path his tear had travelled.

"You poor, sweet man. Not even allowed to cry over a broken heart?" He looked up to see a most curious expression on her face. Then she was kissing him, and he was wrapping his arms around her waist, and before he knew it, they lay naked together, exploring each other, learning what the other liked and did not, and generally making a mess and tiring each other out. It was a long night, full of laughter and cries of pleasure, as well as many questions and answers, and he got to show her just how misplaced her fear of this had been. Thank the Maker for that, at least.


	64. Winter I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is smut ahead. Just not where you think it is.

"Oh, Maker, _yes_! Harder!"

Leliana curled her fingers, digging in deeper.

Solona cried out before collapsing in the bard's lap.

Leliana giggled. "It is amazing what can be done with something as small as my fingers, Solona."

Solona merely groaned before turning over and grabbing at her lover, pulling the woman on top of her and digging her fingers into the bard's sides. Leliana shrieked, and what followed was several minutes of her trying desperately to get away as the mage tickled her mercilessly.

"You wicked creature!" she exclaimed, finally wriggling out of Solona's grasp. She caught the mage's wrist and wrenched it, slipping behind the larger and clumsier woman, taking the wrist with her. She now had Solona pinned, unable to get to the bard and unable to move too far for fear of breaking her arm.

"You know I could simply heal my arm, or catch myself on fire," Solona commented, making no move to do either.

"Yes, but would you do so merely to keep tickling me?"

Solona chuckled. "No, my love, I would not. Release me?"

Leliana did so, backing up and keeping a wary eye on her lover. They were completely naked, having made love throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Though just before the tickling, Leliana had merely been scratching the warden's scalp.

It had been a snow-covered two months in Denerim. Each of her companions spent the winter doing his or her own thing, for the most part. Leliana had spent much of her time with Cassandra and Daniel, learning of the Seekers. She also spent a great deal of time in prayer, silently contemplating. She was rediscovering her faith in this new personification of herself, this mask that was truer than any mask she had ever worn to the woman she was deep inside of herself.

She had arguments with Daniel on the nature of magic, and on those who practiced it. The young Seeker was distrustful of all who used magic, even those sanctioned to do so and who showed no history of non-allegiance to the Circle and the Chantry. It was frustrating at times, because Leliana had come to a very different understanding of it all through her time with Solona and Wynne, seeing spirits and demons and the Fade and the power they manipulated very differently from how it was taught to the masses. Magic was a tool to be wielded, and much like a sword or a spear or the arrows she wore upon her back, it could be wielded for a just cause, or an unjust one. It could be used to selfishly serve its wielder, or it could be used to heal the sick and save those in need.

The young Seeker merely saw a power he did not truly understand, with the potential for great suffering and destruction, and his first instinct was to crush out the potential danger.

Cassandra, however, was different, letting Daniel argue and work out his confusions with Leliana. In conversation between just the two of them, Leliana learned that Cassandra had suffered a great loss due to a fanatical sect of blood mages in Nevarra who had been hell-bent on getting her legendary dragon-hunter family to capture a dragon for them. Since then, however, she had come to same conclusions Leliana had about magic and those who used it. The same events in Val Royeaux that had made her the Divine's Right Hand nine years before had also made lovers of herself and a young mage who had helped her.

It was a wonder how much loving someone could change one's perspective.

As for Daniel, as long as he left Solona alone, the bard was content to let him feel as he did. It was not Leliana's job to teach him otherwise. Not with words, in any event.

Solona's voice grabbed her attention, pulling her out of her reflection of the last several weeks. "You know, I'm certain I will _never_ grow tired of the sight of you naked, Leliana."

Leliana actually blushed a little, feeling the heat move from her face down onto her chest. "Surely _someday_ you will grow tired of it."

Solona shook her head. "Not even when you are old and full of wrinkles, my love."

Leliana scoffed. "I _highly_ doubt that. You will in no way find me desirable _then_!"

Solona lunged forward, catching the bard in her arms. Leliana struggled, thinking it another tickle-attack, but Solona merely wrapped her up in warm, strong arms. The bard relinquished control rather quickly, instead nuzzling into the mage.

"I will love you until the day I die, Leliana," she purred.

Leliana's heart beat a little faster at that. _That day is sooner than I like, my love_ , she thought to herself, not daring to break this moment by saying it aloud. _You may die in this final battle, and even if you do not, I will lose you when you are far too young to the taint running its course through your blood. So I will take this time given me and make what I can of it. And if I lose you… I promise I will do what I can to make the most of_ _ **that**_ _time given me._

Slowly unraveling herself from Solona's embrace, she caught the mage's hand and pulled her toward the bed. She planned to use even the next few minutes before they were summoned to dine with the king and his queen to show Solona her love.

* * *

"Dammit, you sodding _ingrates_!" Oghren shouted, swinging his axe and planting it firmly in the frozen practice target in front of him. It shattered on impact, the head and arms falling to the ground and shattering on their own. The young recruits he was training looked on in stupefied silence as the last tinkle of shattering ice sounded in the air.

Pointing, Oghren continued. "You pull shit like that again, Loasen, and you'll be _dead_. The only reason ya _aren't_ dead is 'cuz Hollen here doesn't _want_ to kill ya!" Taking a deep breath, he got very close, not at all ashamed of his inferior height in comparison to the man to whom he spoke. "What'cha gonna do when yer fightin' a darkspawn who-whatsit and it won't bat a pretty little eyelash at cutting yer ugly mug right off yer _body_?!" Backing away, he addressed the whole group of fifty. "We're usin' _live_ weapons today, ya bunch a _nugs_! Treat that thing with respect, because it _can_ lop off yer pecker, and the only reason it won't today is 'cuz yer fellow soldier has almost the same respect for your pecker that _you_ do! I guarantee the darkspawn won't!"

Turning around, he eyed the three women in this group. "Keep a wary eye on them ones, lads. They have very little respect for yer pecker, which makes them even deadlier." Everyone chuckled, including the women, and he continued walking toward the dummy.

Turning, he retrieved his axe from its ruined carcass and held it before him. "Now, someone hit me."

Nobody moved. Looking around, Oghren grinned. "C'mon, ya bunch a nug-humpers. I _dare_ ya."

Hollen, the man who had almost-but-not-quite killed Loasen – _These Fereldens and their stupid names…_ \- stepped forward, holding his sword in front of him.

"So," Oghren purred, eyeing the man with an even bigger grin on his face. "Yer the one who has the stones, are ya? Well, yer either smarter or dumber'n the rest of 'em. Let's see which."

Not giving the man a chance to get into a defensive stance, he swung his axe. Hollen forwent any use of his sword and instead jumped out of the way. Oghren didn't let up, instead using his axe's momentum to turn his body, swinging the axe around again. Hollen continued to jump back. Oghren merely used his own momentum again, swinging the axe up and letting go of it, letting it fly into the air before he jumped forward. Taking advantage of the human's distraction with his flying axe, Oghren grabbed him by the shirt, shoving him to the ground and punching him right in the face.

"Ya better get out of the way of that axe," he called, getting people's attention up on the sky. Several people stepped out of the way, and the axe came crashing down with enough force to crack the stone upon which it fell. The accompanying noise was deafening, but the axe was built to withstand such a blow, forged in a land of stone as it was.

Getting up off the dazed Hollen, Oghren retrieved his axe, securing it to his back. "Anybody else?"

A round of shaken heads answered him. "Hmph. Fine. Go get some grub. I'll see y'all back here in an hour."

"Actually, _I'll_ fight you, Oghren."

Squinting, he made out Solona walking down the steps into the courtyard. Behind her walked Leliana, Natia, Zevran, and Wynne. Grinning, he nodded. "I accept, Warden." It had been a while since he'd fought someone of skill. He missed the constant sparring on the road.

"Actually… I have a better idea," Leliana piped up, smiling in that way that often meant mischief. Oghren had watched her – ogling her, to tell the truth, but who was gonna split hairs? – long enough to know.

"And what is that?" Oghren gruffed.

Pulling her ever-present short sword, she smiled sweetly. "Let us put your pupils to the test, Oghren. Us against them."

He considered her. "It _might_ be fair…"

Someone in his ranks laughed. "Are you serious? Fifty of us against… what, six of you?"

"Eight," came Alistair's voice, and they all turned to see the king and queen descending the stairs as well. The man who had spoken up paled to be in the presence of his king. "Sorry, we heard you yelling out here and thought we'd come watch." He walked out dressed very simply, only the gold circlet on his head proving his royalty above any other man in the courtyard. Elissa was the same, though she wore a dress and not tunic and trousers like Alistair. They both, oddly enough, carried weapons on their person at all times, though neither had the shield they normally might carry into battle. Even still, they could likely wreak a whole lot of havoc as they were.

"Sten!" Oghren called, and the warrior stopped what he was doing – his meditative exercises with a handful of students following along – to look over across the yard. "Come over here, ya great big lug! We're gonna fight these bunch a nug-humpers and see who wins!"

"Kadan?" he called, looking to Solona.

"Join if you like, Sten," the mage replied. " _I_ , however, would love to see how far they've come. You've been training them in hand-to-hand, right?"

"I have," the qunari rumbled.

She smiled. "Good. No weapons, the nine of us against all of you. Anyone who doesn't wish to can back out as they like."

A few backed away; _the smart ones_ , Oghren thought to himself. Grinning, he set his axe aside, cracking his knuckles dramatically. "We ready?" All of his companions answered in the affirmative, as well as many of the soldiers in the courtyard.

"All right, then. Let's do this!" he announced, immediately reaching out with his long arms and taking hold of a soldier caught unawares. Pulling the man in, he brought his fist to the man's face, tossing him aside like a doll to move on to someone else.

Pandemonium struck as soon as he threw the first punch, and it was with great relish that Oghren lost himself in the fight. He ducked the taller men's fists easily, throwing punches to several people's guts. He couldn't quite bring himself to punch them in the crotch, as he, like them, held only slightly less respect for _their_ peckers as he held for his own. But guts and knees and arms and chests were delicate enough, and he happily lashed out, letting the heat take his blood and flow through him, filling him with the lust of the fight.

He took his fair share of blows, but every time it was to allow him the opening he needed. And he was so strong that each and every person he came across was on the ground, stunned, by the time he was done with them. In reality he probably only faced a dozen people, but given that there were nine of them, the fight was over more quickly than he would have liked.

He stood panting, willing the heat in his blood to abate. Being a dwarven berserker was difficult enough among the dwarves, who at least knew that the berserker tendencies were difficult to control. Here, however, he had to exert a great deal more control, as humans had no idea what he was capable of. Drinking helped a _lot_. People didn't seem to understand _that_ either, expect the other warriors in Orzammar. It completely rid him of his ability to function in polite society, but that was better than becoming a marauding monster every time he became angry. So he drank, and was inappropriate, but managed.

Taking a quick sip from his hip flask, Oghren felt the burn as it traveled down his throat. Already he was calming, and looking around, he saw that the wardens and their companions had laid _waste_ to the yard. The only people who did not sport _any_ injuries were Leliana and Wynne, every other person holding an arm or sporting a bruise on his or her face, even the king and queen. It was glorious, and it was as it should be. The nine of them – _ten, if that bleedin' harpy Morrigan would ever join us_ – could take on the sodding _world_ and come out on top.

Looking around again, he grinned over at Solona. "And we didn't even have weapons or magic on that one," he laughed, going over and slapping her hard on the back. "Come on. This deserves a flagon of ale with our lunches, at the very least."

" _My_ ale, you mean," Alistair pointed out, reclaiming his and his lady's swords before following Oghren into the castle.

"I train yer men, Your Grand Master-ness," Oghren grunted. "You give me ale. It's a fair trade."

"Touché," the king chuckled, shaking his head as he followed Oghren toward the kitchen. It had been a good winter, and while the cold wasn't exactly to his liking, the ale was made with actual wheat and the women had only _respect_ for his skills in battle. Hell, it turned them on! He was never going back to Orzammar _again_.

* * *

"Natia!"

The dwarf smiled, seeing the figure in the distance waving.

"So you've made friends, then?" Solona asked, raising an eyebrow down at the dwarf.

Natia colored a little even as she shrugged. "What else am I supposed to do while you and Wynne do your magic thing?"

"Fair enough, I suppose."

"Any progress on that line?" Natia asked the mage, looking up to her.

"I'm on the brink of… something," Solona answered, furrowing her brows in thought. "It's like… it's like it's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't quite find the word."

" _What_ is?"

Solona snorted. "I don't know Natia. More and more when I channel my powers, I can see the Fade as if through a transparent curtain. Maybe 'see' isn't the right word, but I can sense it somehow. It is _right there_ , and all I have to do is pull back the curtain and I'm in the Fade. I am utterly aware of my body but I can't yet control it. But I also don't even meditate anymore, per se – I simply _go_ there and come back. The true arcane warrior straddles that curtain. I have only to figure out how to stay in that place, in that threshold between this world and the Fade, and I will have it."

Natia was silent a moment, trying to process this information. Her people did not have magic, in fact had a natural immunity to magic. If magic made something hot or cold she felt it, and but the magical flames Solona produced did nothing but burn Natia's clothes. She supposed this in itself was some sort of magic, but it was not controlled by her will like Solona's power – it was innate, residing in her very flesh. So these things that Solona described… Natia had no context for them. Her people did not even visit the Fade when they dreamt.

"What will happen when you do that?" she asked after a moment.

Solona blinked rapidly a moment, halting and regarding Natia curiously. "You know, I have absolutely no idea, Natia. I have only met one arcane warrior in person, and I killed him when he attacked everyone. I do not know what it feels like to fully straddle both worlds. Only that I feel more at peace than I ever have in all my life. And the ultimate peace, the nirvana, will be reached at that moment." She blinked, focusing again on the dwarf. "That moment is when all time will stop and I will be able to see _everything_."

"That… sounds incredible," Natia whispered, trying desperately to envision what this would be like.

Solona shook her head, laughing, breaking the spell. "It sounds crazy. And impossible. But so is the way I utilize the power, directly through that curtain to the Fade. None of what I can do should be possible – it is the realm of spirits. But if that spirit in the Brecelian Forest was right, then I, too, am naturally a being of both the Fade and this world. I can do things that are impossible. But as possible as what I do is for _me_ , so is the reality of this world. I can do heal my body, but I can also die. I am human enough to need the company of a lover and to feel the pain of my family abandoning me. That is remarkably of this world, wouldn't you say?"

Natia nodded. She knew well that pain. Solona put her hand on the dwarf's shoulder for a moment, living her pain with her, before they began walking once more.

"Warden," the elder of the alienage greeted, taking her hand and smiling up at her. He did the same with Natia before turning with Solona and taking her into the sick house they had set up. Wynne was already inside, tending to those who truly had fallen sick during the fake plague, and those who had become ill due to the plague's fallout and lack of food and medicine in the wake of Loghain's reign of terror.

Natia had come nearly every day with Solona, drawn back to the alienage after what she had seen on her journey here with Zevran. These people… they were like her people. Not like the dwarves, but like the Dusters. This _place_ was Dust Town… only the people here had bonded together against their common enemy – the humans in power – in a way not even her own sodding _family_ could. Her sister and mother were so concerned with caste, even though they had none. Her sister and mother had sworn never to speak to her again after she had supported the other candidate for king, resulting in the unfortunate death of her nephew's father, Bhelan. The people of Dust Town worked against each other, scrabbling to stand on each other's heads in order to get what scraps were offered from the upper castes.

Not here. Here, brother supported sister, neighbors cared for each other, and they all treated each other with an immense amount of respect. Even the thieves stole only from the humans, rather than taking what the humans offered over the welfare of their fellow elf. These people formed a true _community_ , and aside from her time with the warden and her companions, Natia had never experienced that. Ever.

It had always been Every Dwarf For Himself.

So she came back when the warden began helping Wynne, learning elven physiology and trying to put her arcane arts into practice with healing magic. Natia, meanwhile, had begun to wander the alienage. At first, she just marveled at the snow and cold, appreciating her cloak and the fine craftsmanship of the clothing she wore, finer than anything she had owned in Orzammar. Then, she had begun to spend her gold, buying herself hot food and elven-made crafts. She had begun to speak with the artisans, asking where they had obtained their materials, and how they managed with so little.

Then Soris had said hello. That was it, nothing more special than that. But they had gotten to talking while Natia had eaten her meal, and before long, the elf began to show her around the alienage, telling her stories and introducing her to people. They were happy to meet her, had in fact been avoiding her _because_ she had been part of the duo who had freed the elves from the Tevinter Magister. But once provided an introduction, his friends and family had been more than happy to shower her in hospitality, offering her a seat by the hearth while begging her for stories.

Soris, she learned, had been freed from Howe's dungeon the night Leliana and Alistair were captured, and had fled back to the alienage the moment he saw an opportunity. His cousin, Kallian, now had a little daughter, courtesy of Vaughan, and Soris and his sister did what they could to help the girl. Her father had either died or been shipped off to Tevinter, and the cousins were all that were left of the family. Natia's heart had gone out to them, and she had quietly left them one night with all of the contents of her coin purse, assured that they would have a warm winter with enough to eat on that alone.

She knew she could replenish at the palace with little more than a request for more.

Natia came by often, playing with the baby to give her mother a break, reminded so of her own sister and nephew. Soris and Shianni would sit with her, outlining their rather outspoken ideas for their community. Natia had the ear of the king and the Warden-Commander of Ferelden. She had the most power to affect change. She was more than happy to listen and pass the ideas along when the opportunity arose.

And honestly… she had a bit of a crush on the siblings, both. Soris was so kind, doting on his cousin and his niece, as he thought of her. He also spoke fondly of his parents, and Kallian's parents, all of whom died too young, at the hands of the humans. He… had such warmth in his spirit. Natia found herself drawn to it immediately.

Shianni spoke so passionately, not letting her life of oppression hold her down. She had so many ideas. She also had a great love for her brother and her cousin. Kallian would often join in, but mostly the girl was tired and… traumatized. Natia had seen the look before. Anyone taken advantage of like that by those society held above them… it was not a pretty sight. And to lose her only surviving parent on top of it…

The difference was that Kallian Tabris had a family to take care of her, and a community above that to look out for them. Their neighbors dropped off food daily, usually leftovers, but it was accepted gratefully. Shianni was doing her best to learn to read and write so she could petition the king herself, change things for all elves within the kingdom of Ferelden. Soris was doing any odd job he could manage to support his odd little family.

The day after Natia left the gold, he had cornered her, asking if the anonymous gift had been her doing. She refused to confirm or deny that it had, indeed, been her, and he had dropped the subject, but every time she visited she noted that the stack still stood, neat and tidy, on the table in the corner. They did not wish to use it, would not even claim it as their own and put it away, but neither did they shove it back onto Natia. It was there if they needed it.

It was telling to Natia just how ironclad their community was that the Tabrises had no fear of their neighbors breaking in and stealing the gold. The elves simply would not do that to each other. The idea was unfathomable.

Natia couldn't help but be a little bit jealous.

Today, she went straight to the elves' home, stopping only to grab a fresh loaf of bread from the alienage's baker.

"Natia! I thought I saw you coming in with your warden friend!" Soris met her at the door, which she barely had to knock upon before he was answering it. "Sorry I didn't come to meet you – I was carrying something home. Come see!"

Natia smiled, handing over the loaf of break to Shianni before following Soris into the room Kallian shared with the baby – her father's old room. Inside, they found Kallian, her dark hair falling long over her shoulders, rocking the baby as she fed her. In the corner sat a large package, which Soris indicated with a flourish, his face alight with a grin.

Natia just desperately wanted to kiss him for the boyishness of his expression.

Instead, she asked, "What is it?"

He chuckled. "It's a bed! A friend of mine is a rather handy carpenter, and came up with a design which could be first a crib, then a small child's bed, then an adult's bed with only the addition of an extra piece of timber."

"That… sounds incredibly useful," she conceded.

"Soris used some of the gold you so kindly left us in order to purchase it," Kallian explained, smiling at her cousin. "It also helped our friend get his business going. Soris can't stop talking about the thing. He hopes to get the employers of the elves who are servants around the city interested, so many of the humans will buy such things for _their_ children."

"But we are the first house," he said proudly, kneeling with a crowbar by the crate. Pieces of wood of all lengths and thicknesses were stacked in two piles nearby. "I had to carry them here in separate batches. I headed over this morning to get the crate. Almost slipped on the ice, but I saw him put it together and dismantle it, so I _know_ it was worth it." He began shoving the crate open enthusiastically, immediately stubbing his thumb on a large splinter.

Natia's heart almost melted at the way his expression turned down. Rushing forward, she took the crowbar from him. "Here, let me. Go have Shianni fish it out."

"Thanks," he muttered, his pale face bright red in embarrassment.

"You're welcome…" Natia faded off, watching him leave the room.

"You like my cousin."

Natia whipped around to find Kallian giving her a knowing look. "I… he is a fine man. He will make some woman very happy someday."

"You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?" Natia asked.

"Soris was married once. For all of five minutes. He and I were married at the same time, to elves who traveled here from another alienage. She… was taken, when I was taken. She didn't survive. She struggled too much, and got a knife to the gut…"

Natia merely stared in shock. "I… don't know what to say. I'm so sorry, Kallian."

Kallian shook her head, wiping away a tear before beginning to switch her daughter to the other breast. "At first I wished I had been like her, instead of paralyzed by fear. I just _let_ them do what they liked… but I am beginning to see the light now, and I am grateful for my cousins, and my beautiful daughter. Soris's betrothed was a good woman, and would have made him happy. He was nervous, but… excited. He would have made a fine husband."

"I agree," Natia said quietly.

"I only hope anyone who might capture his heart is kind, and compassionate. As he is."

"I… hope so, too," Natia hedged, hoping that Kallian was giving her approval, but not knowing for sure. Instead, she turned, thinking on what Kallian had said as she took the crowbar to the lid of the crate.

Kallian's words stayed with the dwarf for the rest of the day.

* * *

"Maker, Alistair, yes, right there!" Elissa panted, feeling the muscles in her thighs contract as she lifted herself again, feeling his manhood slide smoothly inside of her.

"Elissa," the king panted, catching her lips in a frenzied kiss as he stroked between her legs, making her whole body sing with tension and pleasure. "Yes, Elissa, that… yes!"

She sank all the way down, rocking back and forth, grinding him inside of her in that way they had both come to _adore_. It was not long before his whole body seized, and with a cry of pleasure that was muffled by the queen's kiss, he released inside of her.

Elissa stayed where she was, feeling him start to go limp inside of her, but knowing that given a few minutes, she would have him at attention once more. The rest of him went just as limp, his whole body sagging into the pillows upon which he was propped.

She leaned forward with him, smiling into the lazy, languid kiss he offered her. His warm arms slithered around her waist, holding her close but not attempting to move her. They both knew the night's lovemaking was not over. She had no idea if he was normal in this way, or if it was part of the fabled Grey Warden stamina, but whatever the reason, she took advantage of it, as he often didn't last as long as she did before release.

"You are an incredible creature," he murmured, eliciting a giggle from the queen.

"And you," she answered, pointing a finger into his bare chest, "are a fearsome, monstrous fiend who took a young maiden's virginity, ravaging her time and time again!"

He gave her a pout. " _You_ initiated that one, if I remember correctly."

"I did no such thing!" she exclaimed, mock-slapping him on the face. He caught her wrist easily, pulling her closer to him.

"Yes, you did," he chuckled, giving her a sloppy smile. "When you couldn't keep your hands off of me all through dinner."

She got a coy look. "Well, can you blame me? That new style of trousers you have been wearing shows you off to good advantage – all of you. I simply _had_ to have you inside of me after staring at your bum all day."

He blinked for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed out loud. "You've come a long way from the virginal maiden I married two months ago, my love," he finally said, still chuckling.

She finally blushed. It was true, she had. The very fact that she lay here, Alistair Theirin still buried inside of her – and growing sturdier by the second – proved _that_ beyond the shadow of a doubt. He was just so _good_ at it. She almost wanted to go thank that whore at the Pearl who had showed him all he knew. And maybe even, perhaps, that elven servant of Arl Eamon's, as well.

But she also had another reason besides pleasure for bedding him multiple times a day. She was starting to become worried that she was still bleeding. She was young, in her prime, and lying with her husband at least twice a day – shouldn't she be pregnant by now?

It ate at Elissa. Was something wrong with her? Was something wrong with _him_? If he had a bastard child, at least she would _know_! But he did not, because he was not stupid, and was a bastard himself. He used precautions, going so far as to learn which herbs steeped for how long made the proper tea to avoid pregnancy, because, as he put it, "A lady has to carry a child, so I should a _least_ know how not to put it there."

But those precautions were obviously not being used now. She had come to love the feel of him inside of her – his manhood, as well as his hands, and even his _tongue_. Always he released inside of her, and yet she had bled twice already since their wedding night. What would he do if she could not become pregnant? This country had barely avoided a civil war that would not have been an _option_ if Cailan and Anora had children. They could not afford to go long without an heir this time around.

She knew Alistair would not set her aside, knew that his feelings for her were genuine, if in their infancy – as were hers. But she could not stop feeling as though every single advisor's eyes were hopefully settled upon her belly every time she walked by. Hopefully, or _accusingly_.

And so she tried desperately every morning and every evening, in as many positions as she could get Alistair to try, to get him to impregnate her with his heir.

"Elissa?"

Alsitair's gentle voice pulled her from her reverie and worry. She blushed a little harder. "Yes, my love?"

"Elissa, is something the matter? You seem a little distant."

"I… It is nothing."

He frowned, gently removing himself from her – she did not stop him – and moving so they lay side-by-side, facing each other. "Elissa, please. Tell me what is wrong?"

_What can I say that will not scare him off?_

"Please," he prodded, and suddenly Elissa came undone at the seams.

"I… I am worried that I am not yet with child," she confessed in a rush, feeling absurd tears gathering on her lashes. Batting them away, she buried her face in his chest.

"That… that's all?" he asked.

"That's _all_?!" Elissa lifted her head again, staring at him incredulously. "This country almost went to war because there was no clear successor! The Blight is upon us, and there is still no clear successor! At least if I were pregnant we might have _something_!"

He caught her gaze, then, his honey-brown eyes capturing her dark ones and holding them for what seemed a timeless moment. Finally, he took a deep breath. "Elissa… we may never have children."

Elissa blinked dumbly a few times. "What?"

He sighed, looking away. "I'm sorry for keeping this from you, but… I _had_ to have the throne. To change the things I need to change, as we've discussed…"

"Yes, the Chantry, and the mages, and the elves. And I agree. But what does that have to do with this?"

"If they knew I would not have children, they would have found someone else, or supported Anora on her own, or even sided with Loghain. _I_ needed the throne, and more importantly we needed Loghain _off_ the throne. So I lied. Well, I didn't lie, because no one ever asked if I could have children, but I also never offered the truth."

"How… how do you know?" Elissa whispered, searching for her lover's eyes once more in the low light of the candles.

"A Grey Warden cannot have children. Or, at least, it is very difficult to have a child. Female wardens stop bleeding altogether, according to Solona, and for men, it is very rare to cause a woman to carry a child. I… I should have told you before I married you. I was just terrified that this carefully crafted plan would fall apart. I… I'm so sorry, Elissa. You deserved better than that."

"So… it's not impossible?" Elissa asked after a time. Honestly, she was relieved. It wasn't _her_ fault. She could stop walking around feeling accusing eyes on her. She felt bad for her husband, but the shame was not the same for a man as it was for a woman.

He sighed, finally looking into her eyes once more. "No. It's not _impossible_. We just…"

She smirked, reaching down and taking him in-hand, delighting in his gasp and widened eyes as her fingers closed lovingly around his partially hardened manhood. "We just have to keep trying, and try a _lot_."

His expression changing to a grin that matched her own, he laughed, crawling on top of her and entering her at her urging. He came to be fully at attention within seconds, finishing the job he had started fifteen minutes before with the _magic_ combination of his member and his hands.


	65. Winter II

"You need to commandeer every ship currently in the harbor."

Zevran shook his head. "You will still not be able to evacuate all the citizens of this city. And have you ever been on a packed ship? Half your citizens will die within a fortnight from disease."

Arl Eamon furrowed his brows. Zevran smirked inwardly – the man was unused to being corrected in such a manner. "What would you suggest then, Master Zevran?"

The title chafed at the elf. But it was the official title of the King's Advisor and Body Guard – Master. "Begin a steady trickle of people to the Free Marches. They are likely already overrun, but from there they can go to Nevarra and Antiva. Others can go to Orlais, who know of the Blight and have wardens waiting. Have them travel along the coast, to avoid the Frostbacks."

"And when should we start this 'steady trickle,' as you call it?"

"Now."

Eamon laughed. "The ground is covered in snow! You want people to travel in this?"

Zevran stared back, utterly serious. "If we are to have an advantage over the darkspawn, then yes. I am not talking hordes of people, your Grace. I am speaking of individual families, with at least one fighting member as protection. They must leave. This many people in such a place… it would be _asking_ the darkspawn to decimate this country's population."

"I do not see why we must evacuate at all," Fergus said.

Zevran and Alistair both looked to him incredulously. "What don't you understand, Fergus?" the king asked.

"Well… cannot this city hold under siege? Is not this city built for just such a thing, from land or sea?"

Alistair shook his head. "By land and sea, yes. But darkspawn do not travel by land and sea only. Imagine an enemy that tunnels deep into the ground. They thrive in the dark, cold places where _no one_ should ever have to go. They warp and maim. They turn fine women into horrid beasts whose sole purpose is to feed and create more darkspawn. And the archdemon…"

He had everyone captive now. Zevran had seen the things of which Alistair spoke. They haunted his nightmares sometimes, the image of the broodmother especially. But there was something else, something beyond fright or disgust. The archdemon…

"It is terrible, and wonderful, and it fills my soul with joy and dread. I must end it!" Alistair paused, his eyes refocusing on Fergus's stunned face. "It takes the form of a dragon, and it will fly above this city and lay waste, as we might an anthill. Our walls will not save us. If they come here, then these walls will only serve to kill my people _faster_. We _must_ evacuate. That is all there is for it. Those who _want_ to fight should be trained and allowed to stay. Everybody else who is nonessential must leave. I know we are asking them to leave their homes, and they may never be able to come back, but it is better than them burning inside. I do not want mothers being dragged off to be turned into those abominations, nor children seeing such awful sights."

"None of us do, Alistair," Zevran murmured, placing his hand on the king's shoulder. Alistair's tense muscles relaxed some at his friend's touch, and he nodded. Zevran smiled, walking away from his liege lord and back to the large map of Ferelden and its neighbors on the table. Fergus stood still, his face almost green. He had seen the darkspawn, of course, had his unit nearly decimated at Ostagar. But no one but Zevran and his companions had traveled into their territory in the Deep Roads. No one had seen the broodmother, nor heard Hespith's sick little rhyme she had come up with so she didn't forget. Fergus had not feared for his lover, nor his sister, each time the darkspawn attacked. He had not had the sun blocked out from him for weeks on end.

It was different, and he now had some idea how.

"So we agree we evacuate," Eamon said, continuing on in the conversation. "But will this steady trickle be enough?"

"Send scouts with the evacuees," Alistair announced, striding to the map and scrutinizing it. Pointing, he continued. "I want scouts out soon anyway. Send them with each group, escorting them out of the city and putting them on the path to safety. Oghren has trained every able-bodied man in this city, has he not?"

Zevran nodded. "And those women who would. Even the young and old know how to shoot a short bow and hold a sword."

Alistair nodded. "Good. Send the old and young ones with their families, to protect them on the road. Hopefully, given that it's winter, the bandits won't yet be out in strength, and we _know_ the darkspawn aren't on the roads. Once each group is on the road to safety, our scouts will return and report back before escorting more people. As the snow melts, we can send out more and more. We can also inform those who can afford it that they may book passage on the ships all they like. Save the traveling out on foot with escort for those with little means. I can't pay for them to take the ships in style, and I will not have them shoved inside the hold like slaves."

"People will _still_ die this way, Alistair," Fergus finally whispered, his concerned eyes turned on his brother-in-law. "There is no way around it."

Alistair sighed, his shoulders sagging. "I know."

"But this way we will keep our losses down, spread people out." Zevran then cocked his head to the side, an idea occurring with him. "Send pigeons with each group. Many will not make it. But each group can report back the conditions, and where they took refuge. It will give us an idea of what is happening beyond the walls of the city, and perhaps give us an idea of where to find your citizens once this is all over."

"Very well. We will begin figuring out how to enact such a feat," Eamon answered at Alistair's nod of permission. "Will you be joining us, Master Zevran?"

"No," Alistair answered for him. "I… I need to speak with Zevran a moment. Then you may have him, your Grace."

"Of course, your Highness," Eamon answered, bowing before leaving the room, Fergus on his heels.

"Let me guess," Zevran quipped, smirking over at Alistair. "Your lady tries her hardest but cannot please you the way _I_ can, so now you are asking _me_ to go where she will not?"

Alistair burst out in laughter. "Oh, you are always good for a laugh, Zevran! But, alas, no. My lady serves me well, and I her, as far as I can tell. I merely wanted to ask you… have you ever had children?"

Zevran was actually taken aback at this. "Have I had _children_? I certainly _hope_ not!" Blinking at his king, he cocked his head to the side. "What is this about?"

Alistair sighed, walking over to the window and looking out upon the garden. "My queen is worried that she is not yet pregnant, and I finally had to inform her last night that it is because I am a warden. _I_ am the one who is barren."

Zevran joined the man at the window. Below, he saw that he gazed upon the woman in question, playing in the snow with Max with the enthusiasm of a child. "She is a fine lady, Alistair. She does not seem to be the type to worry overmuch about such things."

Alistair chuckled lightly. "She is a smart tactician who _listened_ when her parents educated her. She knows a large part of why we almost went to civil war was because Cailan had no heir. Perhaps it is a maternal instinct, but she wants us to have at least one child so that we do not come out of the Blight with the same problem we had going _in_ to it."

"I hope it is also because she cares for you and wishes to see what a child the two of you make will look like," Zevran said, eyebrows knit.

Alistair smiled. "Yes. I am sure that is it, as well. But that is not why she _worries_. She worries for Ferelden, and now that she has put it in my head… I worry for Ferelden, too."

"Perhaps I am being particularly obtuse, but what does this have to do with me having a child or not?"

Alistair shrugged. "I know no other man with this problem. In fact you are the only childless man I know – Fergus had a son before Howe killed the boy. I wanted to know if it was by choice – deliberate – or if you were never careful but never had any accidents – and therefore barren."

Zevran sighed. "I have been very careful my entire life, Alistair."

"Even with Wynne?"

"Wynne is… beyond that worry," Zevran said delicately. Wynne was one aspect he was unwilling to go into detail with _anyone_ on. But this, to a man who suffered the same as she, he would divulge. The king and Wynne even felt the same, if he could judge such things in Alistair. Wynne lamented that she and Zevran could not have a child. Zevran admittedly was not sure how he felt about fatherhood, but could understand Wynne's regret. She had had a lover _and_ a child ripped away from her, and never seen either of them again. Now that she had Zevran… she sometimes longed for that life she would continue to _never_ have.

Alistair sighed again, turning and leaning against the window. "Do you know if there is anything that can be done? Some herb or spell, or… I don't know. Something?"

Zevran shook his head. "There is no cure for the taint, Alistair. Perhaps Riordan is the one you should be speaking with."

Alistair shook his head. "He is a good man, but hard. I don't like confiding anything in him. He is not like Duncan."

"Solona has expressed a similar sentiment. She said he is cold and hard, though not unwelcoming. Just… unyielding."

"He brooks no argument, and is uninterested in excuses. And he _hates_ her using her powers when she spars."

"I cannot decide why that is. It is her greatest tool, and it needs honing, sharpening, like any other weapon," Zevran countered.

Alistair shrugged. "He says it is because she may find herself without her magic, and cannot let her other skills go unpracticed. I think it hogwash – she incorporates _all_ her skills when she uses her magic."

"So… what happens when the Warden-Commander of Orlais – or perhaps Jader? – and the Warden-Commander of Ferelden are at-odds?"

Alistair snorted, shaking his head. "Solona does what she wishes, like she always does, and eternally pisses off our mentor. Honestly, I don't blame her. He clearly doesn't see how her magic is different from Wynne's, thinks it will slow her down in battle while she's up-close, waling away with a sword."

"That is idiotic," Zevran mused, drawing another snort of laughter from the king. "Come. You should get something to eat and see to your lady. You will find the answer. It may take some time. Perhaps… Perhaps you should name an heir in the meantime, so at least that part is taken care of?"

Alistair stared at him a moment. "Now that's an idea… But who?"

"Fergus Cousland," Zevran said without preamble. "He is without guile or ambition, and would not kill you or your wife simply to get the throne. And he is of noble blood, and _not_ the man who raised you. Unless you would rather find another of your father's bastards? Or Cailan's, perhaps?"

Alistair shuddered. "Maker, no. I do _not_ want to step into that kettle of fish. I am the only bastard my father recognized as such, and that is the way it will stay. No need to spend precious time and resources trying to find the others." Standing up straight, he nodded. "I'll take what you've said under advisement, and let Eamon and the Royal Archivist know when I've made a decision. Thank you, Zevran. I don't know what I'd do without your guidance."

"I only wish you would take my offer of my sword," Zevran lamented, sighing dramatically. "Alas, I suppose we both owe it to our ladies not to succumb to the other's masculine appeal. It is a shame, truly, but I will just have to live with it."

Alistair left the room chuckling, shaking his head. Zevran's mirth faded as he headed to his meeting with Eamon and Fergus. Figuring out the logistics of this evacuation would be no easy task.

* * *

Alistair caught Riordan's sword on his shield, batting it to the side as he brought his sword up. Riordan was quick, though, his off-hand weapon catching the sword. It slid to the hilt, where the man used his building strength to physically push Alistair away from him before the king's shield came back and lopped off the man's hand.

They were working to increase the king's speed with his shield, which was the only skill he needed improvement on. Power and tactics he did well with, his eyes missing nothing. But his bulk and the weight of his weapons were ill-suited to speed… so naturally that is what they worked on most. Luckily, speed was something Duncan had used in his fighting a great deal, and the man's shield – which Alistair now used – was made of special, light-weight materials, allowing Alistair to be able to both bash _and_ move quickly with it.

Moving in this way was still new to him, however, meaning sparring usually involved him being knocked on his rump multiple times.

The winter had gone like this, Alistair and Solona helping Riordan get back to fighting shape. In return, Riordan shared with them Grey Warden lore, secrets only they could be privy to, as well as meditation and battle techniques. He shared stories of Duncan and the others who had died, of the Anderfels and the strange ways of those wardens, and of the Warden-Commander Sophia Dryden's attempt at rebellion… and subsequent death and banishment of the order until Alistair's father allowed them back in.

In addition to stories, he shared tactics. For Solona, it was how to remain as politically neutral as possible while retaining her clout as Warden-Commander. He would give her scenarios and ask her how she would handle them. She would tell him, doing her best to think the problem through. She was usually wrong, and it became clear that she was would need to work on keeping an impassive expression, but over the weeks she became better and better. Being well-read and having lived in a world of petty politics helped, but Solona had never had a taste for it, and therefore was only truly developing her skill for detecting deceit and political maneuvering now.

Thankfully, she was a quick study – not least because she had both Leliana and Zevran to coach her on the side – and Riordan seemed pleased.

He still did not know anything about how her magic worked, though. His unwillingness to sit and listen to her, but his need to be listened to, chafed at both the Ferelden wardens, but there was not much that could be done. They had little time, and he had even less. He was used to being listened to, and not having to listen, and as the saying about old dogs and new tricks went, the man was set in his ways. He was accustomed to filling a certain role, and having to share it with Solona was difficult enough. That she might actually know more about something than he… preposterous.

So Solona did what she liked, which meant he refused to spar with her, to teach her combat techniques, if she was using magic. Which honestly worked just fine for Solona, as far she told Alistair. She was spending her days helping Wynne in the Alienage, honing her healing abilities, or meditating in her rooms, walking among the spirits of the Fade. She would then join Alistair and Riordan for Story Time, as they jokingly called it, sitting through tactical lessons, stories about the wardens, or just sharing a meal with them.

This left Alistair to spar with Riordan daily, keeping his skills sharp. Sometimes others would join them, like Sten or Zevran, or even sometimes Elissa, making for a more interesting session. Usually, though, it was just the two of them, and it was several hours of concentrated instruction, leaving him tired but sated. After months of constant moving and fighting, sparring every night, Alistair was an incredibly fit man, with the energy of a herding dog. The several hours' exercise served to leave him feeling able to concentrate on matters of state.

Well, the constant bedroom activity with his new wife definitely helped his concentration, as well.

Elissa was a gift he never thought he'd be lucky enough to find. He did his best to treat her well, to please her in and out of the bedchamber, to give her little gifts and generally do what he could to make her happy. It saddened him that she still mourned her parents, sometimes weeping as they lay together after their lovemaking, or if she'd awoken from a particularly vivid dream about them. But he knew well enough that this was simply part of the process, and rather than try to distract her, he merely held her.

Sometimes she would tell stories of her mother and father, of her nephew and her brother and his wife. Alistair learned their names – Orana, Oren, Bryce and Eleanor – and even began to develop a picture of what they might have looked like in his mind. It was quite a family Elissa had been part of, and Alistair wished he could have met her parents. He had no parents himself, and would have loved to experience that, even just as someone who married in.

He, in turn, would tell stories about the wardens, before all their deaths. He would share about Duncan, about his recruitment, about the funny stories of drinking too much and having to train the next day with a headache. She asked about his training in the Chantry, about what it was like to train as a templar and to live in the Chantry full-time. He had blushed profusely when he admitted how little he knew about women, to which she responded by giggling and kissing him on the nose before nuzzling back into his bare chest.

All in all, it had been a wonderful winter.

But Alistair couldn't shake the feeling that it was an _extreme_ calm before an _extreme_ storm.

"That is enough for today, I think," Riordan announced, lifting his weapon and stepping back from the king.

Alistair nodded, sheathing his sword before unbuckling his shield. He was sore, covered in sweat, his right arm – he had been training with his off hand this day – trembling from hours of wielding the shield. But all the same he felt invigorated, ready to eat a hearty meal and spend the afternoon hearing Zevran and Eamon's plan for the evacuation of the noncombatants from the city. He knew they would need to start within a week, as even now the snow was beginning to melt during the warmest days, refreezing in the evening to make for a truly treacherous walk outside of the castle.

"You are getting much better, Alistair," the Orlesian warden said, sheathing his weapons. "You were strong and immovable to begin with, but with this added speed, you should find it easier to maneuver out on the field."

"That would have come in handy when I've faced a dragon," Alistair mused, thinking back on it. "You know, both times I've faced a high dragon, I've come out on the losing side. Being able to dodge better will be important."

"Because the archdemon is an even _bigger_ dragon?" Alistair turned to see Solona walking into the room.

He smirked. "Yes. Precisely!"

"Ah, Solona. You have impeccable timing. I wanted to speak with you and Alistair about something regarding the coming battle. We need to start speaking strategy with your armies, but we also need to speak strategy regarding the three of us."

"So… I should call for a private meal, then? This is Grey Warden business?" Alistair asked, already motioning for a servant.

Riordan nodded. "Yes, that would be best. This is knowledge you have yet to learn. It is one of our best and closest-kept secrets."

Alistair glanced at Solona, who nodded. This was it. Riordan was finally going to tell them how one might kill an archdemon.

Ten minutes later, they were in Alistair and Elissa's rooms, being served fruit, cheese, bread, and wine. All three of them dug in like they hadn't eaten in days, making Alistair smirk. As much as he was not a raving fan of Riordan's, it _was_ nice to have someone else around who felt the same persistent, gnawing hunger he himself experienced. For months the others had watched he and Solona eat like the two of them were crazy. It was nice to have someone around who understood it.

"So. You are both relatively new to the Grey Wardens, though Alistair, you had a few months on Solona, yes?"

Alistair nodded. "That's right. I was inducted the summer before last."

"Still, I know not _everything_ was told to you. Have you wondered _why_ the Grey Wardens are needed to defeat the darkspawn?"

Solona furrowed her brows, putting the food she was about to eat back on her plate. "Of course. I assume it has something to do with the taint? But we know nothing more."

Riordan nodded. "That is exactly it. The archdemon may be slain as any other darkspawn, but should any other than a Grey Warden do the slaying, it will not be enough."

Riordan paused, taking a large bite of food, the wait oushing the needle of worry far deeper into Alistair's gut. His food was suddenly not nearly as interesting. "The essence of the beast will pass through the taint to the nearest darkspawn and will be reborn anew in that body. The dragon is thus all but immortal. But if an archdemon is slain by a Grey Warden… its essence travels to the Grey Warden, instead."

The room was silent. Alistair could scarcely believe it. His food lay forgotten.

The taint was for more than detecting the darkspawn? It was for more than bonding wardens in blood, making sure they _never_ deserted? It was for… for this? This ultimate sacrifice? _This_ was the real reason, for all of it…

"That… can't be healthy," Solona replied, an eyebrow raised in his direction. Alistair couldn't help it. He laughed, and the tension eased from his body. It wasn't that it was a good joke. It was that they had always known they might die. That she said this to _him_ was merely her way of reminding him of this, that nothing had truly changed.

"Indeed," Riordan continued as their laughter died, still quite serious. "The darkspawn is an empty, soulless vessel, but a Grey Warden is not. The essence of the archdemon is destroyed… and so is the Grey Warden. They mangle each other."

Alistair nodded. "Meaning whichever of us kills the archdemon will be killed, as well."

"Yes. Without the archdemon, the Blight ends. It is the only way. Otherwise all of Ferelden will fall to the Blight before the other wardens are able to arrive." The elder warden now put his food down, highlighting how important what he was about to say was. "In Blights past, when the time came, the eldest Grey Wardens would decide which amongst them would take the final blow. I am the eldest. If possible, the final blow is mine by right. The taint will not spare me much longer. But if I fail… the deed falls to the two of you. The Blight must be stopped at all costs. We cannot fail in this."

The silence returned. Neither Alistair nor Solona attempted a joke. It was solemn. It was important that it be solemn for this moment, for they both must remember what Riordan said. Above all else – above their loves, above Alistair's role as king and Solona's role as only known arcane warrior, above their friendships and enmities – they were Grey Wardens, and they had a duty. They must end this Blight. Nobody else could do so.

Riordan left them then, to think, and to sup, and to discuss amongst themselves.

They turned to face each other as Riordan shut the door. Nearly at the same time, they said the same thing.

"It should be me."

"I'm eldest in the order!" Alistair exclaimed.

Solona shook her head. "No, Alistair, it cannot be you. If I am alive to take the blow and Riordan is not, then it should be me. You are our king. We cannot lose you." She paused, then smirked. "And you know I'm right."

He thought about arguing, before slumping. "Dammit. Why are you always right?"

She shrugged. "Call it a woman's prerogative."

Alistair nodded, accepting that as truth, despite the jest it was meant as. Some might see his willingness to accept that explanation as him being spineless, but he knew its truth. Women ran the Chantry, a woman was chosen as the Maker's voice on Thedas, and a woman shared his bed each night. She would bear his children, should they have any, and would care for him as he lost his mind to the taint. He was not an idiot. Women were truly the ones who made the world work. It was kind of them to let men live in it, truly.

He looked at her slyly as they continued their meal. "You're not nearly as broken up about this as I would expect. Leliana is going to be furious. And I can't say I blame her. You're my sister – I don't want to lose you, either."

Solona nodded. "Yes, she will be. But I have no intention of dying, Alistair. I am an arcane warrior. I can get to the Fade without assistance. Surely I can find a way around this."

"I see," Alistair replied, nodding slowly. "You intend to use this to your advantage? Trap the archdemon in the Fade, or something to that effect?"

"Pull it there, battle it there, destroy it there." Solona paused, cocking her head to the side as she held food halfway to her mouth. "I just need to convince Leliana that I am capable of such a thing…"

Alistair laughed, clapping her on the shoulder. "Good luck with that, Solona."

Shaking her head, she took a heroic bite. "Yeah, well, good luck telling your _wife_ , Alistair."

His laughter died in his throat, turning to a groan. Leliana, fiery as she was, would be all right. But Elissa had lost too much already. She would be _livid_.

* * *

As it turned out, speaking with Leliana was not easy. Solona got to their room and was immediately pounced, the small woman veritably climbing up Solona's tall frame.

"Leli!"

"Shut up, Solona," the bard nearly growled, fisting Solona's hair and pulling her down for a kiss. "You are going to make love to me, and you are going to do so _right now_."

"I…" Solona managed to grab hold of both Leliana's arms, pushing her away and holding her at arm's length. "Leliana, please. We need to talk."

Leliana cocked her head to the side, no longer trying to get to her. "Can it really not wait? Is it really more important than this?"

Solona slumped. "Riordan just told us how an archdemon is slain."

"Oh…"

Solona nodded, releasing her lover and moving to sit on the side of the bed. "Yes. Somewhat kills the mood."

"Is it horrible? What happens?"

Solona watched Leliana's lithe, graceful body come to rest next to her. The bard was wearing very little, simply a short robe, and it got Solona's blood pounding… until she thought on having to finish this conversation.

_Balls. I should have made love to her first…_

"It… Leliana, the warden who slays the archdemon dies right along with it. Or, at least, that is how it has gone in the past."

Leliana merely blinked rapidly for a moment before responding. "I… So there are three of you, and one of you must _die_ in order to end the Blight?"

"Yes. The eldest of the wardens has the right to slay the beast, and Riordan plans to do so, but… if he does not succeed, then it must be either Alistair or myself. This Blight… it is bigger than any other concern, Leliana."

"Surely Alistair will-"

"No!" Solona snapped. Reaching for Leliana's hand and taking a deep, calming breath, she continued. "You know he can't, my love. Not unless there is no other option left to him. He cannot leave us without a king, without an heir. But Leliana," she said, getting her lover's attention. She could see moisture gathering in the bard's eyes, and knew she didn't have long to stave off utter hopelessness. "I have an idea that I think will work, to avoid any of us perishing."

Leliana blinked again. She swallowed, sniffled, and then finally she said, "What is your idea?"

It hurt to see Leliana like this. And it hurt to know that moments before she'd wanted Solona to make love to her. And most of all it hurt to know that she was the ultimate cause of this pain, and would be for the rest of her life… however long that might be.

_Shit. It's hitting me_ _**now** _ _that this might not work? Great job processing all of this, Solona…_

"Solona, love. Please. Tell me this idea which might give me more time with you."

Solona shook her head, pushing her weighty realizations aside. She could worry later. "It involves all the meditating I've been doing. I could take the archdemon into the Fade with me, battle it there. I have destroyed demons in the Fade, Leliana!" She was getting excited now, surer and surer that it was something she could do. "It might be slightly different at its essence than a demon, but I do not think that will matter. My powers in the Fade, especially when I can keep my mind, are unmatched. And if I fail… at least the archdemon will be destroyed either way."

Leliana stared at her for a moment. Then, drawing her knees up onto the bed, she melted into Solona's arms. "I know there was always a chance I would lose you in this," she murmured. "It was just nice to be able to ignore it for a while."

Solona nodded. "Yes, my love, there was. But now… now it is _still_ not a certainty. I _can_ make it through this. And I promise I will always do my best to come back to you. You are not more important than ending the Blight, but if there is even the smallest chance I can do both… I must try."

Leliana nodded. "That is all I can ask. But… Solona, just hold me for now?"

Adjusting her position and gathering the bard into her arms, she cooed, "I can do that, my lovely girl. I can always do that for you."


	66. The Dark Ritual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Whew! I don't know why this was so hard to write! But now we can fucking move on. I hope you like it. I'm rather proud of how this turned out.
> 
> And credit where it's due. Raven Sinead continues to beta this, and even supplied the description of Morrigan's appearance about mid-chapter.

 

The raven was silent, gliding on still wings right for the palace. It held a bundle in its talons, and several people on the ground commented on the amazing sight.

Its feathers ruffled in the wind, but not for long. Soon, it alighted on the windowsill, bundle tumbling to the floor of the room in the palace of the King of Ferelden.

Where stood the raven now stood Morrigan, naked as the day she was born, long black hair spilling down over her shoulders. She immediately dismounted from her precarious perch on the windowsill, taking her bundle of belongings and opening it upon the table in the corner. She dressed quickly, brushing and tying her hair almost mechanically.

The winter spent on the abandoned farm outside Denerim had been restorative. When she needed to hunt, she would transform to a wolf and find her prey in the surrounding woods. She supplemented with the stores she'd found in the cellar of the farmhouse. She had a bed in which to sleep, a hearth with which to cook and heat the house, and all the time she needed to read her mother's grimmoire.

Inside she found spells, rituals, and recipes for the most interesting and horrible of concoctions. Most importantly, she found even more detailed instructions for the ritual, which her mother had intended her to perform using the wardens.

But now it was time to return. The Blight would be upon these lands soon, if the wardens' prediction about the darkspawn returning with the spring was correct. Morrigan needed to reconnect with her companions, get back into their good graces, and participate in the preparations for the coming battle.

She also needed to get back in Alistair's good graces if she hoped to use him for the ritual. She had thought that perhaps she could seduce Riordan instead, but her mother's writings had made it clear very quickly that it must be a man recently tainted, and it must be within a fortnight of the death of the archdemon – any sooner than that, and the child would be too far along to be undamaged by the Old God's soul. Someone longer-tainted was not suitable; the barren seed could not be made fertile.

She did not relish revisiting the situation with Alistair, but she must. This was why she was here. That power _must_ be hers, must be allowed to persist. This was the only way.

She ignored the small voice that reminded her that this also meant both Alistair and Solona could survive this Blight if she succeeded. She had no concern for such sentiment. Only power mattered. And this ritual would get her _much_ power. The fool templar and arcane warrior's survival was incidental. Unimportant.

This did not quiet the voice, nor the relief it brought to her heart.

Morrigan left the bedchamber which had been assigned to her before she left for the woods, cruising past a startled elven servant. No time like the present to find and start ingratiating herself with the king. Besides, she needed to know what the plan was. Had there been sightings of darkspawn? Could the wardens hear them readying themselves? She must be brought up to speed on what she might have missed over the winter.

 _It will take all of five minutes_ , she thought to herself, shaking her head. Honestly, Solona had probably spent the entirety of the winter rutting around with the Orlesian harlot. Alistair, the buffoon, had probably spent the time eating and sparring; such simple needs for a simpleton. Perhaps he had decided to take the elf girl to his bed again? Or the Cousland brat? They had been staring at each other an awful lot…

An explicable hammering started in her chest, causing the witch to hasten her steps. She must find Alistair so that she might lay her plans in motion.

* * *

"Alistair?"

The king looked up from his desk to find Natia at his door. His companions had unquestioned permission to enter his study, never being stopped by guards unless it was entry into his bedchamber they sought, and that only because he did not wish to be walked in on with his wife. With the dwarf were two elves with bright red hair, clearly coming from outside the castle, as they did not wear the livery of the servants of the king.

"Yes, Natia," he greeted with a smile. He felt good today. The evacuation was in progress, and he had a steady trickle of scouts coming in. They were as ready as they could be for the invasion of his lands, which could begin any day. It made him feel… well, it scared the shit out of him that they were this close to the invasion he had seen in his dreams, but it also made him feel good. Waiting was almost unbearable.

Now if he only knew where to stations their armies.

"Alistair, these are the friends I told you about, who I've been spending time with in the Alienage."

"Ah, yes, of course I remember. Soris and Shianni, right? I believe we've met before, Soris, in Howe's dungeons." He stood up, beckoning them inside. "Come, come and sit. Are you hungry?"

The two elves appeared to be in a shocked silence. Alistair supposed he couldn't blame them – the king was talking to them as if they were equals. He internally sighed. It would never stop. Hopefully he wouldn't get so sick of it that he stopped treating people well.

He called for food and drinks, directing the elves and dwarf to some chairs on the other side of the study. "So," he said, taking a seat. "To what am I owed this pleasure of finally meeting you both?"

The elves continued their silence. Natia eyed them before speaking. "I was thinking about what you've been saying about how to properly enact changes for elves, and I agree – you just _deciding_ what changes to make wouldn't work. And you don't want to only talk to your servants because the power differential means they likely won't be honest, won't fight for what they want or need for fear of their livelihood. Zevran will help, but he's not Ferelden and has actually managed to escape many of the injustices the common elf faces.

"You need to talk to people in the Alienage," she finished, indicating her wide-eyed friends. "These are two such people. And they're usually a _lot_ more talkative…"

"Well," Alistair said, picking up the pitcher of ale that had just been delivered. "Let's see if a little social lubrication doesn't ease the passing of words over your tongues, my friends."

 _That_ got a laugh, finally.

"Why don't… why don't you go get Zevran, Natia? A few more people in here might also lighten the mood, yes?" He shifted his gaze to the perplexed elves. "It really is friendly around here. It's not some act I'm putting on for your benefit."

The woman, Shianni, finally spoke first, as Natia left the room. "I… apologize, your Majesty. We are not… accustomed to this treatment from humans. We've learned to not be outspoken. Had I learned that lesson sooner, perhaps my cousin would not currently be raising Vaughan Kendell's bastard daughter…"

Alistair narrowed his eyes. "I do not believe that child was ever his, Shianni. The girl can only claim those who have raised her as her own." Pausing, he cocked his head to the side. It meant Maric wasn't really Alistair's. The thought gave him no qualms. "If you are willing to tell that tale, I would hear it. I don't have a good grasp on just _what_ the people of this city have gone through on a regular basis, having not been raised here myself."

Shianni took a deep breath, seeming to center herself. "I…"

He handed her a mug of ale, pushing the tray of food closer. "Take your time. And please, eat. I know food must be hard to come by after the despicable things you saw with winter on your doorstep."

Nodding, Shianni took the mug, taking a sip before setting it down. "Vaughan… _interrupted_ my brother and cousin's wedding day…"

Several hours later the moon shone through the window, and yet Alistair, Shianni, Natia, Soren, and Zevran still sat together, seriously discussing ways the lives of his elven citizens could be improved. The ale had flowed liberally but was now sitting untouched. Alistair had just gotten out of his seat to stretch his legs, to wander around his study a bit, when the door slammed open.

In walked a rather wild-looking Morrigan, wearing an expression that made it clear she thought the guards now apologizing for her unauthorized entrance no better than the roaches she might crunch under her boot heel. She strode into the room with the grace of an ocean wave, powerful, inexorable, demanding by sheer force of presence. She wore nothing but rags, as per usual, but on a body of almost glowing alabaster skin, they seemed like royal robes cut from Nature herself to clothe a dark goddess.

Shaking his head, Alistair banished the thoughts that expressed his awe at her appearance. He had a wife with whom he was madly in love, and trying to have children. He should not now look upon Morrigan with desire. Not least because she thought his heart also not any better than those roaches.

"Morrigan," he greeted neutrally.

"Alistair," she returned, eyeing him strangely before her cat-like eyes slid to his companions.

"Is there something I can help you with?" he asked, dismissing the still-stammering guard with a curt nod. The man couldn't have kept the witch out even if he'd tried to behead her. He would not be punished.

"I… needed to speak with you," the witch replied evasively, again eyeing the three elves and the dwarf.

"Alone, I take it?"

"Yes," she snapped, eyes now on him. Once again he felt like she bore holes right through him.

Standing up straight, he was about to open his mouth to retort that he was busy, that he was in the middle of an important meeting, when Zevran beat him to speaking.

"We will leave you to your guest, Alistair," he announced, standing and gesturing the others to the door. "No doubt Morrigan has much to speak of now that she is back from her sojourn in the woods this winter. Besides, we have been here far too late. Surely Soris and Shianni have a journey to the Alienage before they can go to bed this night?"

The elves looked confused but nodded. Zevran smiled. "We can arrange when to meet again before you leave," he said to them, escorting them out the door. Natia followed behind, a little confused, but also looking somewhat amused. It was clear that _everyone_ knew Morrigan had slept with Alistair, and found it exceedingly entertaining.

 _Nosy gits_ , he thought.

Then something suddenly occurred to him. _Does she even know I married? She wasn't at the wedding, had already disappeared…_

"Alistair, I needed to speak with you about the archdemon."

Alistair furrowed his brows. "The… archdemon?" He certainly wasn't expecting that.

"Yes, halfwit, the archdemon. I know how one must die, and-"

"Wait… how in the world do you know that?"

Morrigan actually _huffed_. "Do you really think Flemeth would not know such a detail? I have known since before I left her nest to travel with you."

Alistair was suddenly _angry_. "You knew and didn't tell us? All that time we spent traveling and wasting time in the Shaperate looking up Grey Warden history, and you could have just _told_ us the thing we needed most to know?!" He felt his face getting hot. He took a step toward her, suddenly filled with the wish to grab hold of her and shake some sense into her. "Why in the _hell_ did you not say anything?!"

Morrigan laughed. She actually _laughed_. "And what good would that have done me then? You would have had no use for me. If I have learned one thing, it is to never share information for free. What would I have gained from such a thing?"

Alistair saw red for a moment. "You selfish _bitch_!" he cried, stalking toward her as he spoke. "We went and killed your mother for you! Do you understand that? We went and _killed a legend made flesh_ , and you couldn't share that _vital_ bit of information with us? I nearly _fucking_ died, Morrigan! Your mother turned into a high dragon and blasted me with the heat of a thousand suns! I had armor melted to my _skin_!"

He stopped in front of her, her back now to the wall. The door was open and anyone happening by would see and hear, but he did not care. She did not cower in front of him, but neither did she look entirely unafraid. Again, he did not care.

Though he also did not lay a hand on her.

"Why, Morrigan? Do we truly mean nothing to you? Did I never mean anything to you?" His anger diffused slightly, leaving him red-faced and breathing hard, but no longer seeing red.

She was silent, merely staring up into his eyes stubbornly, not letting him win this. Sighing, his shoulders fell, and he moved away from her. Sitting in one of the chairs from his earlier meeting, he grabbed a warm mug of ale at random and downed the thing.

_She thinks we would have made her leave if she had shared that with us. She has learned nothing in her time with us. I so wished to show her something different from her mother's teachings._

After a moment, Morrigan joined him, seating herself precariously on the edge of a chair and just… staring.

Glaring, more like.

Sighing again, Alistair gestured vaguely at her. "What did you want to speak about, Morrigan?"

"I take it that Riordan has finally seen fit to share with you that one of the three of you must die in order to end the archdemon?"

He felt his anger rise once more, but tamped down on it, taking another drink of ale instead. "Yes, he has," he answered, as neutrally as possible.

"I… have a proposition for you."

Despite himself, Alistair was intrigued. "What kind of proposition?"

She gave him an unreadable look, her pupils dilating like a cat's in those yellow irises of hers. "To save your and your sister's life, Alistair."

Alistair paused, his ale halfway to his lips. Narrowing his eyes, he considered Morrigan. Of _course_ she would have a way around this. Probably blood magic. Maybe cursing some poor bastard to have the taint and then throwing _him_ at the dragon as he or Solona killed the thing. He shouldn't listen. He knew blood magic was not the way to go.

And yet… he remembered the sad, tired look in Leliana's eyes that evening at dinner, the day Riordan had told them about all this. She'd looked… resigned. It was a look that did not suit the fiery redhead _at all_.

And Elissa had been beyond angry. She had burst into tears at first, beating her fists against his chest even as she held desperately to him. She had then raged, yelling about how it wasn't fair, that she'd had so much taken from her already. Alistair had tried to assure her that if it came down to it Solona would take the final blow and not him, and while that had calmed her, it had also saddened her again.

" _How can I ask you to bear that, just for me? And what about Leliana?"_

_Alistair shakes his head. "Not just for you, my dear love, though the last thing I want to do is hurt you more in this way. It is for the kingdom."_

_She scowls. "Fuck the kingdom. What does the kingdom mean in the face of our losses?"_

_He smiles sadly. "Everything. It is bigger than our losses, and I know you know that. It cares not for the things we lose. Our people will not care that I lose my sister in everything but blood. They will only care that they can eat again, and that their own children will stop being killed by nightmares made real."_

_Elissa sighs, slumping. "I cannot lose you, too, Alistair…"_

"All right, Morrigan," Alistair finally said, setting the flagon of ale down. "I'm listening."

"I offer a way out, for _all_ the Grey Wardens. There need be no sacrifice. Of yourself, _or_ Solona. 'Tis a ritual, performed in the dark of night." She paused. "Like _this_ night."

"Let me guess. There are detailed instructions in your mother's grimmoire?" Morrigan nodded. "And why should I trust anything you found in there? The woman was an abomination."

"Anything to do with magic stirs your fear, _templar_!" Morrigan spat, eyes narrowed. Alistair fancied she would be bearing her fangs had she any. "What I speak of is old magic, dolt. A ritual from before the Circle of Magi was ever created. What do you think stopped an archdemon before the Grey Wardens and Andraste and the Circle were all widespread? It was mages, witches and warlocks who roamed free and could live their lives as they chose. It was they who first tainted their blood purposely, for this very ritual."

Alistair narrowed his eyes, sitting forward in his seat. "Blood magic, no doubt?"

"And if that is so? The evil in blood magic is not in its use, but in the intention for the use. Blood magic itself is not evil – but often those who are desperate enough to turn to it in the world of the Chantry are themselves already beyond redemption." Morrigan left her seat then, stalking silently to the window. "I have known about this ritual for some time. 'Twas the reason I was sent with you. But the grimmoire provided necessary details I had not been told." She paused, staring into the sky out the window. "It is almost as if she knew I would send someone for the book. That is... troubling..."

Alistair stared after her for a moment, puzzling out the holes in her story so far. "Why were you sent to perform this ritual? Surely neither you nor Flemeth cared that much for our lives? And what _is_ the ritual? You leave more questions than you answer."

"'Tis simple. You must lay with me. Here, tonight. From this ritual, a child shall be conceived that bears the taint. The Old God's soul will instead inhabit this child, who will be young enough that it will do no damage. The Old God's soul became tainted, but the ritual shall cleanse it of the taint, leaving a human child of unknown ability. All from a single night together." Morrigan turned, leaning against the windowsill. "'Tis not as if you have not lain with me before. As I recall, 'twas a pleasurable time for us both."

Alistair didn't know what to feel. To have her mention their time together so nonchalantly, after so many months of avoiding him and the subject altogether… And yet his manhood betrayed him, a hot throb of desire sounding deep in his lower belly. He pictured himself taking her right there, leaning her over that window for the world to see. Taunting her with the knowledge that the world _would_ see, and know, that she desired him, that they would see her get such pleasure from him…

He shook the thought from his head. That was not the man he was. He did not _take_ women. Women were not _things_.

How was it that she still held him in such thrall, even after thoroughly breaking his heart? His anger turned inward. He hated that he desired Morrigan still, that he craved her sex, her body, her mind. As infuriating as she was, he had come alive around her, responding to her needling and rejoining with his own. She was a harpy, and he had fallen in love with her, and no matter how much he loved Elissa, she would never be Morrigan, and…

Elissa would never be Morrigan. The woman he married was sweet, and loving, and even after everything she had lost she had nothing but love and comfort to give. The things she wanted most in the world at that moment were a mabari puppy and to have Alistair's _children_ , for the Maker's sake! She wanted to make with him, Alistair, the insignificant and inconvenient king's bastard that nobody cared about, a family like the one she had lost. A family like one he'd never had.

And he wanted _nothing_ more than he wanted that, with her. Not even Morrigan.

"No, Morrigan. I can't do that. I'm married, and _happy_ , and I would never have those things with you."

Morrigan's eyes blazed. "You will not save Solona's life because it would make you unfaithful?! You will not save your own life for your precious queen because you do not wish to betray her?! And does she not wish children? I can make your seed fertile once more, Alistair!"

That gave him pause. Really, all of it gave him pause, but that detail actually made him speak. "You… you can make me fertile again?"

Now she just looked frustrated, instead of murderous. "Yes. 'Tis necessary for the ritual to work. Any child you father will bear the taint – I can do nothing for that – but you can have a _gaggle_ of children with your wretched queen."

He said nothing to Morrigan's insult of his wife, merely thinking. Should he do this thing? One little transgression to make all of the things wrong in his life now right. He could give Elissa – and himself – children, he would be assured the survival of himself and his sister… And he could not deny the voice of lust within him that desperately wanted a second taste of the untouchable Morrigan. To take her, lay claim to her, in a way she did not allow other men to do.

It made him feel despicable, but neither could he deny the primal urge.

As he thought, she continued. "After this is done, you must allow me to walk away. And you _will not_ follow. Ever. The child is to be mine, to raise as I wish."

That got his attention again. "I… I am to make a bastard child? I can never meet it? Never hold it?"

"Why so concerned, Alistair? You act as though this does not happen every day."

Alistair frowned. "You should know me well enough to know I do _not_ wish to put some child in the same situation I myself was in." He paused, sighed. "And why can you not go to Riordan?"

She clicked her tongue. "Even if I thought Riordan could be convinced, he is unsuitable. I need one who has not been tainted for long. It must be you, and it must be soon – if not tonight, then tomorrow."

He scrubbed his hand over his face. "And I can _never_ meet my own child?"

"Never. It is _all_ I ask for in return."

 _I need more time_ , Alistair thought to himself. _How can I make this decision?! I need to speak with Elissa. No, actually, that would be a terrible idea. I'm talking about betraying her, I can't very well_ _ **tell**_ _her. Maybe Zevran? Morrigan said we could do this tomorrow, so I have some time_ …

He didn't notice her until she was there. Morrigan lifted his chin with a single finger, kneeling down in front of him. "You are not really going to say no, Alistair. I can offer you much. All of the things you want, as well as immense… pleasure." Her other hand slid to the front of her tunic, beginning to unlace it.

Panicked, his wide eyes looked to the study door, still open. A murmured word from Morrigan, however, and the air shifted. The door moved, shutting quietly before the lock slid into place. When he looked back to her, bare breasts greeted his gaze, and both her hands were sliding between his knees.

"Your wife will not disturb us before we are done." Her hand slid up his thigh, brushing over his rapidly-swelling manhood before reaching for the ties to his simple linen tunic. "Well?" she asked, her voice suddenly smooth as silk.

He swallowed. _I am going to hate myself for this._


	67. The Thaw

The Thaw was officially here. Leliana sat upon her horse, standing at Solona's side. Great cracks resounded around the flat farmlands surrounding Denerim as the thickest ice melted. It was the calm before the storm, and it filled Leliana's insides with dread. Never before had she _dreaded_ the coming of spring.

Solona was in an interesting mood. She wasn't sad, but she was… determined. She was cracking jokes like normal, but there was an edge to her humor. Her sleep had suddenly become a lot more restless, her mind sometimes wandering during their lovemaking, and speaking with Elissa confirmed that Alistair was behaving similarly. But when she woke, Solona did not remember her dreams, and her attention was easily brought back to Leliana with a mere word in the bedchamber. Alistair, as well. Both Leliana and Elissa feared for their lovers. And agreed that it must mean the darkspawn were becoming active.

Solona's voice cut through the crisp morning. "Come, my love. We must meet with the arl and Riordan and the rest of our companions today."

Leliana nodded, turning her horse and beginning a slow trot back into the city. This was their morning ritual ever since it was warm enough to do so – ride out of the city and look out on the landscape. It was part of Solona's and Alistair's attempt to get a feel for the battle that was coming. And perhaps a way to take in the world before potentially losing their lives.

"So what do you think of Morrigan's return?" Solona asked her lightly.

Leliana smiled. Solona had been working relentlessly to keep Leliana out of the darker moods that had been descending upon the bard in the few weeks since Riordan informed the wardens that one of them must die in order to kill an archdemon.

"I think she looks much refreshed from her winter away from people," Leliana replied.

Solona snorted a laugh. "Indeed. She also looks incredibly smug. What do you think she's up to?"

Leliana knit her brows. "Nothing good."

Solona opened her mouth to speak, but then seemed to think better of it. She shut her mouth, shaking her head as she pulled her cloak's hood over her bare head.

"I am sorry, my love," Leliana said after a moment more of dark thoughts. "You know I do not like her. I do not like how her eyes grow greedy when you channel your power, and I do not like how she hurt Alistair so."

Solona sighed. "I know. I'm sorry I brought it up. At least Alistair is now married. He is not the sort to go back on his vow to his wife, I think."

Leliana smiled. "Likely not. Though you never know… In the heat of the moment, with a beautiful, naked woman lying before you... it is a great temptation."

Solona turned her head to look fully at the bard. "Are you seriously telling me that you would sleep with another woman should the opportunity present itself?"

"I'm not sure I have the energy after trying to keep up with _you_ , my darling," she quipped with a smirk

Solona threw back her head and laughed. Reaching out, Leliana took her hand for a moment, linking them over the gap between their horses. "I love you, Solona. I-"

A man's voice rang out as they approached the gates into the city. "Hail! It is the Warden-Commander!"

Solona let go, straightening in her saddle to look up at the guards above the gate. They did not usually announce her presence. "Is something amiss?" she shouted.

"The king has been awaiting your return, ser! There is word from the scouts!"

Solona looked over to Leliana. They both knew which scouts the men meant. They were the scouts who were sent a little over a week before to ride as far as they could, so as to get a feel for the darkspawn and their movements. The return of the scout's pigeons would be… invaluable.

Without a word, they both sped up to a gallop, riding through the gates and making for the king's palace with great haste.

* * *

Alistair looked up at them from the table as Solona and Leliana marched into the room, Max at their heels.

"Solona. It's time."

She just furrowed her brow. "What's happened? What did they find?"

It was Fergus who answered. "The darkspawn are marching on Redcliffe, as far as anyone can tell."

She just nodded. "We had always figured we would try to meet them away from the city. The only thing this changes is our timeline," she said, coming to look at the large map of Ferelden upon the table.

Arl Eamon looked grim. "Our armies are not yet ready to march, Warden-Commander-"

"That is not entirely true, Brother," Teagan interjected. Moving forward, he began fiddling with the wooden representations of elves, dwarves, and men on the map. "The mages and templars set out to meet us here a fortnight ago. We received their pigeons. They should arrive by the end of the week. The Dalish elves have been sighted, greeted our scouts kindly. They have no pigeons with which to send messages, but they sent a runner back with our scouts. The scouts and the Dalish representative returned this morning."

Leliana stepped forward. "Bann Teagan, is there any chance you know this runner's name?"

He furrowed his brows. "I do not. But she is in the kitchens-"

"It is as you suspect, Leliana," Zevran said, interrupting the Bann as he entered the room.

Behind him marched-

"Mithra!" Solona shouted, striding over to greet the elf enthusiastically. Leliana flew past her, sweeping the woman into a hug that clearly took the poor elf by surprise in front of all these strange people. But she smiled and bore it – she and Leliana truly had become quite close during their time with the Dalish.

"Perhaps you can introduce us, Warden?" Arl Eamon suggested pointedly.

"Arl Eamon, this is Mithra, a fine hunter with the Dalish clan we helped in the Brecelian Forest several months ago," Solona said, turning and facing the arl. "Mithra, you already know Alistair, who is now our king, as well as my fellow warden."

"Well met, Warden," Mithra murmured, inclining her head toward Alistair. She was soft-spoken, as was necessary as a huntress and in the forest in general. Here, though, in a room full of boisterous human men losing their minds over the coming invasion, it seemed too quiet, out of place.

It entertained Solona to no end that Eamon, Fergus, and Teagan had to strain to hear the woman.

"And these are Arl Eamon, Bann Teagan, and Teyrn Fergus," Solona continued.

Mithra knit her brows. "These are your names? Or titles, perhaps?"

Solona frowned some. "That's right… you would have no context at all, would you? Yes, they are titles. They set up a rank structure."

Mithra nodded. "I will familiarize myself with that structure later."

"For now," Alistair said, "just know that in matters related to the darkspawn, Solona and I outrank everyone else."

"The darkspawn are moving," Eamon reminded them. "Teagan was updating us on the status of our armies."

"Indeed, I was," Teagan nodded, stepping up next to Solona before continuing. "Now then… the Dalish are marching here. The dwarves barely left Orzammar this past week, and are marching on foot. A runner could be sent, and they could be diverted down to Redcliffe at Lake Calenhad, though it will still be slow. The various armies of men are stationed around the city and throughout the Bannorn – it is well-protected."

Solona, frowning down at the map until now, finally spoke for strategy. "Redcliffe itself is only protected by a handful of men, correct?"

Teagan nodded. "A garrison of only two hundred stayed, to protect the surrounding villages from opportunistic bandits and the like."

"And the darkspawn are marching on Redcliffe…"

"We must reinforce them somehow," Leliana said, coming to stand next to her lover. The redhead and her elven friend were almost comically dwarfed by the men in the room – and by Solona.

"Only horses will move fast enough. We do not have cavalry, or mounted infantry," Arl Eamon mused, stroking his beard as he thought. "They were decimated at Ostagar."

Riordan chose this moment to finally speak up. "The wardens and their companions should ride for Redcliffe, your Grace. We can await the dwarves there, bolster defenses and await the coming of the archdemon."

Eamon turned, furrowing his wispy, woolly brows at the Warden-Commander from Orlais. "That is it? Ten people to reinforce against the darkspawn horde?"

Riordan was undeterred. "If we can reach the archdemon, then we can stop the horde in its tracks. Do not forget that this handful of people-"

"Misfits, cutthroats, and apostates, you mean," Solona interjected, smirking.

Riordan merely bowed his head, acknowledging her statement. "These people took on a werewolf curse, found the Sacred Ashes, and discovered the secret to darkspawn propagation, all on their own with almost no help. This time, they will have armies behind them. Send the dwarves to reinforce Redcliffe, but have us arrive as an advance guard. Everything else is well-protected. We will send pigeons to confirm or deny the archdemon's presence." His eyes glinted. "In the end, the archdemon is all that matters. If we stop it, we stop _all_ of it."

"We'll just need to cut our way through a million darkspawn to get to it," Alistair muttered darkly.

"Surely their numbers cannot be that high?" Fergus scoffed.

"They are higher," Solona corrected him. "I saw it, Fergus. A great, undulating mass of destruction, hell-bent on following the whims of the Old God. They cannot even help it. They are _compelled_ to do so."

"But if the archdemon dies, then the horde is no more. They lose direction and flee," Riordan added.

"The elves can be diverted as well," Mithra chimed in, coming to the map and examining the troop deployment. "I can run back to them on the morrow. We are fast. I can lead some of our fastest hunters to support Castle Redcliffe while the rest continue here. We can be there in days."

"As can we, on horseback," Solona said, studying the deployment with Mithra. Moving one of the elven figures, she grabbed a few pebbles kept on-hand to represent anomalies and placed them on the map at Redcliffe. "These are us: the wardens and our companions. The dwarves will reinforce us, but we'll start with ourselves and shortly thereafter the elven hunters. I think this is as good as we can get, gentlemen."

There was a general agreement, and they were dismissed to make plans amongst themselves.

* * *

Mithra left before dawn the next morning. Most of the citizenry was gone from the city, including Revka and her family, much to Solona's relief. The girl had reconciled somewhat with them now that she had her new position with the king – thoroughly disgusting Solona – convincing them to take a royal writ that would allow them passage on a ship. They did not know where they went, but Solona sent her sister with enough extra gold to keep them comfortable until they could journey back to Ferelden.

When Alistair asked about it, she merely said, "They may have abandoned me, but if for nobody else's sake than Revka's, I do not want them dead."

Now they sat astride their horses, a group of ten once more. Well, eleven when counting their addition, Riordan. Elissa stayed behind to govern the city, much to her chagrin, along with Arl Eamon, Bann Teagan, and her brother Fergus. The companions left the city, riding hard over the thawing ice and snow, leaving the road when necessary to avoid the sucking mud.

Almost immediately, Riordan left them, citing his need to track the 'spawn. Given his age and how long he had been tainted, he was actually somewhat skilled at "listening in," as it were, and wished to see what he could find by venturing close to a pocket of the beasts. He urged Solona and Alistair on to Redcliffe without him, promising to be there not half a day behind them.

It took three days of hard riding, but they made it to the city. Unfortunately, what they found there was quite disturbing. The windmill was afire. The ground itself was blighted. Off in the distance, an ogre could be seen milling around, lifting… _something_ … to its gaping maw amidst a sea of the smaller darkspawn.

They were too late. Redcliffe, or the village at the very least, had been sacked.


	68. The Sacking of Redcliffe

Solona thrust with her sword, ending the life of the last of the darkspawn in the village. Looking up, panting hard as she caught her breath, she let the power fade, the world coming back into normal focus. Alistair cleaned his blade before re-sheathing it, Natia and Sten following suit. Oghren didn't bother with cleaning, his axe enchanted to shed any impurities that might try to take up residence upon it.

Leliana, Zevran, Wynne, and Morrigan were off in the distance, gathering up the spooked horses even as they stowed their own weapons.

Max came up to the mage, bumping his head against her hip. She smiled.

"Hey boy," she cooed, kneeling down in front of him and butting her own forehead against his. "You're a good boy, battling those darkspawn. I'm glad to see you didn't forget, what with your winter spent making as many puppies as you could."

He crooned a happy bay, panting heavily as she petted him. Solona laughed, shaking her head before regaining her feet. Her laughter died in her throat, however, as she continued to take in the village.

Dead bodies, human and darkspawn alike, littered the ground. The size of some suggested children. The homes were razed, some still on fire, others burnt-out husks. The snow and ice still clinging to the ground was soaked in reds and blacks, the blood of the fallen from both sides.

"Balls," she murmured under her breath. Sighing, she trudged over to Alistair, mindful to not slip in the mud and muck. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she pulled his attention from his own horrifying view. "I guess the scouts were right. The darkspawn were headed here."

Shaking his head, he turned mournful brown eyes upon her. "Solona, these numbers… there should be more. This is not a horde. This is barely a scouting party."

Solona felt the blood drain from her face.

"Shit, you're right. All this death, and the rest of them… aren't even here yet."

"Or aren't coming at all. Maybe this was just an advance unit, come to make sure Redcliffe's army wasn't at their backs?" Alistair's eyes wandered. "These poor people…"

Solona opened her mouth to comfort him, but halted before a sound came out, a familiar sensation dancing along the base of her skull. She took off in the direction of the castle.

"Where're ya goin'?" Oghren gruffed.

"There are more!" Alistair shouted, following behind her..

Oghren whooped, brandishing his axe as he ran ahead to catch up with the Warden-Commander, whose sword was already glowing once more.

* * *

They rounded a corner to men fighting darkspawn.

"That must be the remnants of the two hundred left here to protect the village!" Leliana shouted, pulling an arrow from her quiver and sending it into the fray. It took a hurlock in the neck, stopping the creature from skewering an exhausted-looking young man holding his free hand to his side.

Solona nodded in acknowledgement before sheathing her sword and switching it for her staff.

"Everyone, stay back!" she shouted, aiming her staff in the direction of the battle. The darkspawn, alerted by Leliana's arrow and the general shouting, were already moving away from the handful of humans holding the stairs leading up to the entrance hall of the castle. One moment a wave of genlocks were heading for them, hooting and growling in anticipation of fresh prey. The next moment a large number of them were rooted in place, their feet suddenly and inexplicably melded with the ground. The fiends behind them stumbled over their rooted compatriots, killing them and halting the charge.

"Kill them all," Solona ordered, her multi-toned voice ominous with so much death in the air. And yet, somehow, it filled the bard with purpose – Solona's purpose. The darkspawn would die.

Leliana loosed two more arrows before the risk of accidentally hitting one of her comrades was too high. Then, switching out her bow, she pulled two long daggers from her hip, running forward, silent as a mouse where one of her companions might have let out a battle cry.

The battle cry of a bard, if not the flirtatious laughter of the bedchamber, was deadly silence. It was a battle cry Leliana had mastered.

Her first opponent was a genlock who somehow managed to escape Solona's spell. She caught its vile sword with her right-handed weapon, stabbing in almost the same moment with the other. She let it fall, running past it as it drowned in its own foul, viscous ichor.

Leliana's long braid whipped behind her as she dove, rolling upon the ground to avoid an axe wielded by a particularly muscular hurlock. The mud and muck seeped between the pads of her armor, trying to soak into the wool she wore beneath it to keep warm in the wintry chill, but she was unmindful. She could spare no thought for future discomfort. Her job was to kill, and not be killed herself.

The bard struck at the hurlock as she found her feet, hamstringing it. Then, changing the grip upon her dagger from forward to reverse, she plunged the blade deep between two ribs. The grating of the blade against the bone set her teeth on edge, but she could pay it no mind. She struck with the other hand, slicing the dying thing's throat, and moved on, not even watching it die.

The battle went on. The number of darkspawn was interminable, it seemed, coming from everywhere and nowhere. And yet one moment Leliana was running for her life, using darkspawn corpses to keep from the sucking mud, and the next she stood panting, breathlessly looking for another foe to fight and finding none standing but her companions.

She made for Solona's side as the mage, eyes no longer glowing, approached one of the soldiers they had saved.

"What happened here?" she demanded of the one closest to her, the man Leliana had first saved.

"You… you are the Grey Warden? The Champion of Redcliffe?" he asked, his face pale and his hand clutching his side.

"Please, Solona. Let us work to save these men before we question them," Wynne soothed, coming to her former student's side. Leliana was pleased to see Solona's posture relax.

"Yes, of course you are right, Wynne. Come," the Warden-Commander directed to the man. "Let us get you and the others some attention. Then you can fill us in on what happened here."

He nodded, looking up to her for a moment as she ushered him around and up the steps, away from the filth and disease that accompanied the death of so many in such a small space.

"Come," Leliana directed to the rest of her companions, finally cleaning her blades and sheathing them. "We have much to clean up, and we cannot help with healing."

Alistair nodded, rounding up the others so that they might build a funeral pyre to dispose of the dead, darkspawn and human alike.

* * *

"So you were attacked with no warning?" The man shook his head, immediately grimacing. "Careful. Don't hurt yourself further," Solona soothed, placing a placating hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry, my lady. No, we did have a little warning. We tried to evacuate the townspeople to the castle. We knew we could defend them there much better than in the village."

The mage furrowed her brows. "So what happened? We found human bodies in the village."

The man coughed, blood appearing on the hand he used to cover his mouth. He'd had a wound that pierced his lung, and without Wynne and Solona's intervention might have died, but now he would be all right. He did, however, still have to cough up all that had bled into his lung, and would be sore for days.

"They were faster than we thought. We only managed to evacuate about half the villagers before the first darkspawn emerged from the woods. Our commander decided to cut and run, protecting those who had already made it rather than losing _everyone_." He coughed again. "I still don't know if my wife and children were among those saved or not…"

Solona's heart fell through her stomach. "Go on. See if you can find them. Where is your commander?"

He frowned. "Saw him take a darkspawn sword to the gut, my lady. He's out with the other dead in the courtyard."

Solona shook her head. "All right. Go on. I'll sort out the rest of the details with my companions."

"Right you are," he grunted, getting to his feet with her help and wandering into the room at large.

The large dining hall of Arl Eamon's castle had been turned into an infirmary. The tables had been pushed to the edges of the room, making space for cots and bedrolls to be evenly spaced throughout the center of the large hall. Most of the fatally wounded soldiers and villagers had been treated, and Wynne, Leliana, Zevran, and those villagers with the skill now wandered the room, changing bandages, administering healing potions to the more seriously injured, and generally trying to make life more comfortable for them.

Solona met Alistair at the threshold to the entrance hall, just as another of the soldiers wandered away from him. The king seemed… tired. "What have you learned?" she asked without preamble.

"They evacuated the villagers to the castle but the darkspawn attacked before they could finish." He even _sounded_ tired.

"Yes, I got that much out of someone myself," Solona said. "They came here hoping to save at least _some_ of the villagers. Which they succeeded at."

Alistair sighed. "Yes. But only barely. They've lost over half their numbers, in addition to the half of the villagers who weren't able to evacuate. Less than a hundred cannot hold this village, not even just the keep." He paused, growing quiet. "I don't know what to do, Solona."

A voice rang through the room. "We must turn around immediately."

Both wardens turned to find Riordan striding through the great double doors, Mithra and a few other elven hunters behind him.

"Riordan?" Solona asked, moving toward him. "You are here already?"

"Yes. I found the bulk of the horde, and Redcliffe is not its intended target. They sent a small number off to take care of the people here, but the bulk of the horde simply continued on, rounding south of the hills." He eyed them meaningfully. "I got close to enough to hear their intentions."

"That would be why we saw neither hide nor hair of them," Alistair mused, shaking his head as he looked at the floor. Looking up, he asked, "I take it you also ran into Mithra's unit of hunters?"

Riordan nodded. "Just a mile outside the village. The rest are outside setting up a perimeter around the castle, relieving your exhausted soldiers." He looked around, narrowing his eyes at all the wounded. "We must leave. The horde is headed straight for Denerim, and the archdemon is with them. These people are out of harm's way now. You have done all you can for them. Our priority _must_ be the archdemon."

"And you will save more lives by going to reinforce Denerim in any event," Mithra added, knowing just what to say to halt both younger wardens' complaints.

Solona nodded. "You're right of course."

"Wait, I can't-" Alistair started, cutting himself off and turning around. His voice sounded… odd.

Solona frowned, reaching for his shoulder. "Alistair?"

He held up his hand, shaking his head but refusing to look her way.

"We… will give you some privacy," Riordan murmured, moving past them and going to speak with Wynne in the center of the room. Mithra was quickly at Leliana's side.

"Alistair, please talk to me," Solona said softly, trying to turn him once more. This time, he acquiesced. The mage was shocked to see tears on the man's face. "Dear Maker, what is wrong, Alstair?"

"This is my _home_ , Solona!" he burst out, immediately shutting his mouth as his lip trembled. He was fighting back what promised to be keening sobs.

Looking around, Solona grabbed his arm, leading him to an abandoned side room. As soon as the door was shut, Alistair let loose a single sob, burying his eyes in his hand. "I grew up here! I was born here! My mother _died_ here, giving me life! And I… I have failed them. I am their king, and I let them all die…"

Solona made comforting noises, her hand on his shoulder once more. "That isn't true, Alistair. You have not failed anybody-"

"Don't try to comfort me with lies, Solona!" he snapped, shaking her off, his voice bitter. "A good king is not made in a day, and this is one decision where I could have done so much better. I should have left more men here." He sniffed, wiping his eyes.

Solona narrowed hers. Comforting him like this… it wasn't her job. It was his wife's job, in the comfort of their marriage bed. Here, now, he needed something far different from Elissa. He needed a kick in the rear. He needed her to be his commander. "Then do better _now_."

He blinked a moment. "What?"

"Redcliffe isn't your only home anymore, _Your Majesty_. All of Ferelden counts on you. So do them _better_. Save lives in Denerim. Help me kill the archdemon and _end_ this thing. Or are you telling me you can't do better than this? You've faced dragons and won, Alistair. This is just another dragon." She smirked. "This time we'll try not to lose you all your hair."

Pursing his lips and squaring his jaw, he nodded. "You're right. I can do better. I _will_ do better. We leave at first light. I… I will retire to my old guest room. To sleep, and to think." He turned, heading for the door. He paused with his hand on the knob, turning his head to face her. "Thank you, Solona. I… I needed to see that this wasn't the end of the world. There's more to do, and no time to fall apart. I imagine it is a lesson every leader has to learn."

"Yes," she said, merely standing in the middle of the room. An image of Leliana injured in Dust Town, of having to contemplate continuing on in this quest without her, popped into her head. "It is."

Alistair just nodded before opening the door, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

* * *

They left the next morning, along with Mithra. The elf rode with Leliana, both of them light enough to not burden the horse when riding together. Natia and Oghren slowed them down some, their ponies not up to the task of keeping up with full-sized warhorses. But, all in all, they made excellent time the first day.

The second day, however, they discovered the horde's path.

Black. That was all Alistair could see. The landscape was black. The trees were scorched black. Even the snow and ice were gone, the land beneath their horses' feet dried and scorched instead of muddy. It was as if the darkspawns' very feet blighted the land it touched.

"It is the archdemon," Riordan murmured, looking around as they took in the broken landscape. "This is the work of the blue fires that spurt from its great maw. It blights anything it touches that is not already tainted. Literally sucks whatever spiritual and life energy it has right out, feeding the archdemon, energizing it further."

Alistair couldn't even imagine. He had seen the fiend, seen its great blue flames, felt its call. It had called to him and Solona as it had called to any other darkspawn, filling him with a battle lust he could not ignore. But because he was not a darkspawn, his target had been clear to him – kill the archdemon. The bones scraping along his skull had intensified to knives digging in, compelling him to listen to the blood lust that heated his veins.

And now, seeing the destruction the thing caused, he was filled with similar feelings, though thankfully without the feeling of knives. And the need to kill the archdemon was more focused. It wasn't simply because he was compelled to kill. It was because the horde had done _this_ to his _home_ , his _people_. And they were heading for Denerim, the seat of power and the most densely populated area in the whole of the country. It was a message. The darkspawn were coming to kill them all, to feed the monster urging them on.

Alistair would _not_ let it. Looking over to Solona, he saw a similar determination in her eyes. Riordan wore it as well. There were only three of them, but they would do it.

They had no other choice.


	69. The Beginning of the End

Denerim was burning.

The smoke was threatening to choke them all. It settled in a haze over the city, despite the breeze off the water, which should have cleared the air and carried the smoke away. It was cloying, sticking in their noses and throats, making them cough, watering their eyes so it was difficult to see their attackers.

Elissa suspected it had something to do with the giant dragon's blue fire that had set the city aflame. It was unnatural. It made sense that the smoke would also not act as regular smoke.

The queen held back a cough now, lifting her sword to block a darkspawn blade. They were foul, awful creatures. If she hadn't been backed by a city full of soldiers then she would have cowered. The response at the sight of them was so basic, so… deep and primal. These creatures were _wrong._ There was no other way to describe them.

The idea that the blood running through her husband's veins and the blood running through these monstrosities' were the same… was preposterous.

And entirely too uncomfortable for her to entertain right now.

So instead she threw herself into battle. Her sword was covered in the thick, viscous blood of her enemy. Her shield was worn and dented from blocking darkspawn weapons. Her shield-arm's shoulder had moved through pain and on to tingling, threatening to go numb. Rivulets of sweat poured down her face under her helm despite the chill of the early spring air. The mud seeping through the cobblestones sucked at her boots, and yet still she helped fight back the darkspawn. They were trickling in from elsewhere into the city, but Bryce and Eleanor Cousland's daughter would _not_ let them take the main gate. She would deny them this, even if it killed her.

Unfortunately, she was pushing herself too far. She only knew how to lead by example, and so she kept at it, rotating out her reinforcements so they could refresh themselves, but leading the replacements herself. Hour after hour she repulsed the monsters away, and hour after hour they kept coming. They were ceaseless, but her energy was not.

"Sister! You must _rest_!" she heard Fergus shout to her. She dared not turn to him, instead thrusting with her sword and gutting one of the short little bastards that came running up in front of her. It died with a gurgle she could barely hear.

One thing no one prepared her for was the _noise_ of battle. Swords and axes crashing together, the shouting of those standing, the dying rasps of those upon the ground… it all came together in a grand cacophony that could overwhelm the ears. The only option was to tune it out.

Fergus appeared at her side, slashing with his sword to ward away a darkspawn who sought to take the dead one's place in front of the queen. Elissa barely had time to note his presence before his hand was on her shoulder and she felt him yank her backward.

She was hauled, protesting loudly, behind the line of defense.

"Elissa, _please_!"

"Fegus, let go of me!"

He did so, but when she tried to turn for the darkspawn once more, he tripped her, placing his boot on her sword-arm's wrist, effectively trapping her until he chose to let her up, just as he'd done so often as they grew up. "Fergus!"

"You are _exhausted_ , Elissa! You have not seen battle before this day! You do not have the stamina to keep this up! You will make a mistake and be _killed_!"

She frowned. "I am _fine_! I must lead my people-"

"There are other ways to lead them, Elissa!" His expression softened, but he still shouted as loud as ever. "They do not want their queen harmed!"

She stopped struggling, looking into his face. His message was clear. She was his baby sister, and all he had left in the _world_. _He_ did not want her harmed. But… "I must fight, Brother!" She shouted, but no longer struggled. "I must… I must await the return of my king!"

Fergus's eyes softened even more. "He will come, Elissa. He will-"

He was cut off by the herald's bugle. Shouts went up. "The wardens! The wardens are here!"

Fergus caught her gaze. Without a word, he let Elissa up, and it was together that they rushed forward, to meet their enemies head-on.

* * *

The archdemon had been visible above the city for hours. As they rode, lathering their horses to a dangerous degree, Alistair's heart filled with more and more dread. He dreaded the coming conflict. He dreaded knowing the truth of his wife's wellbeing. He dreaded possibly losing all the people he loved. He dreaded Morrigan getting what she wanted and what that child with an Old God's soul might mean.

And, confusingly, he dreaded the end of the archdemon. It filled him with purpose, and once it was gone… what would he be then?

Now they had been sighted, and as Alistair heard the bugle, he saw the darkspawn at the gate turn his way. He was pleased to see his soldiers rally, sallying forth to take advantage of the darkspawn's distraction. Pulling his sword, Alistair prepared to leap from his horse. The animal was done, exhausted, could not fight even had he known how to fight from its back, so he let it go. All he could think of was the battle to come.

He cut a swath through the darkspawn, killing or dazing with every movement. No energy was wasted, his winter of training to increase his speed serving him well. He lifted his shield and a darkspawn's blade was stopped. His lifted his sword and a darkspawn would fall to the ground, dead or dying. It almost became a beat he could dance to, his strokes so sure, so meticulously placed and well practiced that they formed a rhythm of a sort.

But then a piercing cry cut through the air, and without quite knowing how he knew, he went running.

Elissa was in trouble.

He was there in seconds, bashing and pushing enemies out of his way to find Elissa hovering over a downed Fergus, an ogre of immense proportion hulking over them both.

Without thought, Alistair rushed forward, a battle cry he could never purposefully produce falling from his lips. He thrust with his sword, finding the gaps in the ogre's greaves easily and digging deep into the creature's calf. It screamed, turning so quickly Alistair's sword was yanked from his grip. He merely narrowed his eyes, unbuckling Duncan's shield and taking hold of it with both hands. Ducking low to avoid a blow from one of the thing's massive hands, Alisair rolled forward. It was a calculated move, meant to take him within striking distance. Rolling to his feet, the king and warden used his momentum coupled with his prodigious strength to slam down with the pointed end of his shield, driving it through the ogre's unprotected foot.

It shrieked and hobbled, finally falling, its leg up in the air while half its foot remained on the ground, black blood spraying through the air.

Alistair dove out of the way. When he found his feet once more, he saw Elissa jumping through the air. She landed on the ogre's chest, somehow managed to keep her feet as the thing tried to get up, and grabbed hold of its horn with her free hand. With the other, she drove her sword straight into its gaping maw.

Black ichor burst from the back of its neck along with the Queen of Ferelden's blade, and the ogre was no more. Alistair called his wife's name as she disappeared from sight, the beast falling limp to the ground.

* * *

"Elissa!"

The queen relinquished her hold on both her sword and the ogre's horn, allowing her momentum to throw her from the giant darkspawn. She tucked her head and landed on her shoulder, rolling to her feet. Her teeth jarred when she hit the ground, her shoulder alerting her that tomorrow she would be _very_ sorry, but she was otherwise unharmed.

Either way, she was unmindful. She had a mind for one thing, and one thing only.

"Alistair!" she called, running toward him.

Three steps and she vaulted herself over the creature she had just killed. Landing once more, she was in her husband's arms, their lips locked together in the most desperate kiss of her life.

It was cut short when a nagging thought in the back of her head finally got her full attention. Pulling back, she cried breathlessly, "Fergus!" before prying herself from Alistair's arms and finding the wounded man upon the ground.

He had been hit hard by the ogre, slamming into the ground helm-first. He was clearly unconscious, sprawled on the ground where he had landed. But a hand on his throat confirmed his heart was still beating, so he wasn't dead.

Yet.

A familiar, welcome hand appeared on her shoulder. Alistair pushed her gently out of the way, stooping to lift his brother-in-law in his arms. As he stood, Elissa saw his fellow warden coming up behind him, all their companions converging on them from various points around the field of battle. The soldiers left standing formed a ring around them. The darkspawn at the gate were gone. The wardens had come. They would stop this. The archdemon, the mad flying monster clogging their throats with smoke, would fall, and its minions would relent.

"Come," Solona said, her eyes hard as she took in the scene. "We must keep moving."

Nodding, Elissa turned, leading the Grey Wardens through the gates of Denerim.

* * *

"So we must simultaneously aid the elves, hold the gate, and go for the archdemon." Alistair looked up at his companions. "Any ideas?"

Leliana spoke without hesitation. "You, Riordan, and Solona _must_ get to the highest point you can in order to neutralize the archdemon. I believe that would be Fort Drakon. Zevran and Natia have spent the most time in the alienage and know its layout the best. Sten, Oghren – you stay here with the men you have been training all winter. Max should stay with you; a rooftop is no place for a mabari."

"Where will the rest of us go?" Elissa asked, eyeing Alistair as she spoke. Alistair reached for her hand.

"Wynne should come with us," Solona said, looking to her mentor. "In case we have need of your healing magic as we go. We _must_ succeed in killing the archdemon, and I can only do so much. Leliana, you-"

"Will not be leaving your side, Solona."

Solona shut her mouth, took a deep breath, and nodded. "Very well. Elissa-"

Alistair interjected. "You should go with Zevran and Natia, my love."

"No!"

Alistair shook his head, taking her hand and leading her a short distance from their companions. "Please, Elissa…"

"Why can Leliana be there with her love and I cannot be with mine?" the young woman demanded.

Alistair sighed. "Please, I do not want to worry about you. Having you on the field-"

"Do _not_ sit here and tell me I am a distraction, Alistair." Her voice was hard, and yet somehow full of passion.

Alistair narrowed his eyes. She was right. As true as it was, it would not work against her. But there was another thing, something Elissa felt almost as strongly as he about. "Elissa, the elves. They were last to evacuate. I need _you_ to be with Zevran and Natia. They need to see that we care about them. It is important a human helps, and even more important that it be one of their leaders. I would go if I could, but I must be where the archdemon is. In this, my duty as a warden supersedes my duty as king."

She just scowled up at him. "And why did you leave their evacuation so late if you care so much for them?"

He sighed. "Their time under Loghain left them with almost nothing. I gave them as long as I could to leave so that they might have some food and shelter through the winter. They would not have lasted in the cold and ice and snow. I couldn't force them to leave the city in that, so I left them last. But… the horde came before we thought it would."

Elissa looked up at him with those soulful brown eyes, big and open and begging him to fall in and get lost. Oh how he wished they could make love one more time before this battle. But they couldn't. This was it. No matter the outcome, they were already here.

"Fine," Elissa finally said.

Alistair just blinked a few times in surprise. "What?"

She sighed. "Fine. I will go, if that is what you wish. But if you die without me there, it must be because you took down the archdemon, or Maker help me I will come to the afterlife and drag you back so that I can kill you all over again, Alistair."

He chuckled. Smiling down at her, he pulled her into a crushing hug that she did not shy away from. Then, her hands were seeking out his face, pulling him down for a bruising kiss.

"I mean it, Alistair," she said breathlessly as she pulled back. "The child growing in me needs its father."

Then she was gone, speaking with Zevran and Natia as they prepared themselves. Alistair just stood dumbfounded for a moment, only a single thought able to penetrate his mind: _I guess Morrigan was right about restoring my fertility_.

"You are almost sickening, Alistair. A single kiss gets you so aroused you cannot move?"

The voice was Morrigan's. _Speak of a devil, and it shall appear…_

Before he could even fully form the thought, he called for the witch. "Morrigan! Wait!"

She turned as he trotted to her. "What is it?"

"The… the ritual…"

She raised a single brow. "Yes?"

"It worked. I am no longer barren. Elissa just told me she is with child. "

"As am I. Congratulations." She sneered, going right for his guilt with her next statement. "You are quite virile indeed, getting the both of us pregnant in so _short_ a time."

It stung, as Alistair knew it was meant to. He frowned. "That's not what I meant. She's pregnant, and the child will be tainted. Will the archdemon go for hers instead of yours?"

She shook her head almost immediately. "'Twas the purpose of the ritual. Partly to make you virile once more, and partly to ensure that only the child produced during the ritual is the one the Old God will seek."

His heart finally slowed at this, and he nearly sagged in relief. Morrigan noticed.

"Of course, now you are sending two women pregnant with your child off into the city without your escort. Imagine what might happen to your children, Alistair."

Alistair straightened, his eyes hardening. "You will go with her, Morrigan. You will keep her safe."

"I will do nothing because you command it," she said with a raised brow.

"Horse shit. You will do this for me because of what I have done for you. You _owe_ me, witch. And I know you don't like to remain in a person's debt."

She took a step back from him. "I owe you nothing. We both gained mutual pleasure-"

Alistair just stared hard down at her for a moment. "If it was pleasure I sought I could seek it elsewhere, Morrigan."

It _had_ been fun. It _had_ been pleasurable. It had also been the most anxiety-ridden hour of his life, wondering who might try to come in, or if Elissa would know what had occurred when he went to her bed that night. He had immediately scoured himself in the hottest bath the servants could draw after Morrigan left his chambers, seeking to atone for his sins while also seeking fervently to wash the scent and taste of her off of him. He could barely perform that night for his dear wife. "I could have called in any number of women that weren't _you_. You restored my virility, and for that I am grateful, but you are getting _far_ more out of this deal. You _owe_ me, Morrigan. Will you settle your debt, or not?"

It wasn't quite true. He was getting his _life_ out of the deal, too. But he knew Morrigan wished them to live. And he knew better than to actually say it out loud, or he would be guaranteed to not get what he wanted.

Those cat-like yellow eyes found his, her eyebrows softening. He saw a flicker of… _something_ behind her eyes. Some feeling that she dare not express. "Yes. I will do this. But when the battle is over and the archdemon is slain, I will be gone. You will have your family, your queen and your heirs and your sister in Solona. I will have this, and I will be gone, and you will not seek me out."

Alistair let out the breath he had been holding. "Very well. Do this for me, and I will forget about you."

Nodding, Morrigan turned, pulling her staff as she approached Zevran. Sighing, feeling as though he'd come out worse in this deal, Alistair shook his head and walked over to Solona and Leliana.

"Ready?" his warden sister asked.

He merely nodded.

Her expression hardened into grim determination. "Good. Let us finish this."


	70. Aiding the Alienage

Shianni ran. Her breath came in heaving gasps. Sweat poured down her face. The mud sucked at her boots. Sorris and Kallian ran ahead of her. The humans had abandoned them. She had spoken with the king to right the wrongs in the city, but in the end, when push came to shove, the elves had been abandoned.

And now they ran. Kallian's baby wailed, but it did not matter. Not far behind Shianni a great hulking monstrosity ran, brandishing a weapon dripping in elven blood. Shianni had a bow strapped to her back, but she did not have time to pull it, stop, and aim at the creature. It would be upon them in moments and it would all be over.

She had hoped to see her people flourish. She had hoped to see the children with fat bellies by the next winter, to see her cousin married to a good man and able to enjoy the bedchamber one day. She had hoped to see Sorris marry, father children, be a leader in the community.

She had hoped to see Natia again. She was in love with the dwarf, in her own way. She knew Sorris was, as well. And she saw how Natia looked upon her brother. This didn't bother the elf. She didn't need to be with Natia in order to love her. She simply _did_. The woman was good to them, and cared for all of them, ensuring their survival through the winter. Natia had spoken of how things were in Orzammar, with the poorest of the poor preying upon each other in order to emulate in some small way the lives of the upper castes. It sounded… hellish. And it was utterly foreign. An elf who preyed upon her own like that would be run out of town and never allowed to show her face again.

But she would not see the dwarf again. Instead that giant ogre behind her would catch her, crush her, impale her with its weapon, and there was nothing she could do about it.

A feminine war cry sounded, seemingly out of nowhere, and before Shianni knew what was happening she was shoved hard to the ground. Rolling, the elf looked up, sure the ogre was upon her. Instead of its weapon heading for her face, she saw a human slicing a sword across the throat of the giant beast. The face was familiar…

"It's the queen!" she breathed, watching as the ogre's blood oozed, almost in chunks, from the fatal wound the human woman had inflicted.

Jumping from the ogre as it fell, the queen, the woman younger than _Shianni_ that the elf had met at the castle along with the king, walked over to her, holding out a hand to aid the elf to her feet. Taking it, Shianni was surprised at the strength in the human woman. It shouldn't surprise her – armor and weapons were heavy, and sparring was hard work – but the feminine form and playful manner of the woman Shianni had met at the palace were at odds with the warrior in front of her.

"You are unhurt?"

Shianni shook her head. "Yes, your Majesty. Thank you. You have saved me." Suddenly panicking, Shianni turned around. "My family!"

Her eyes searched frantically for a moment before they came to rest on a somewhat odd sight: an elf and a dwarf locked in an embrace. Further scrutinizing made it clear their lips were also locked, and Shianni smiled.

"You saved us all, your Majesty."

* * *

Elissa smiled. She liked Natia, and knew the dwarf had been spending quite a bit of time in the alienage, and spoke of these three elves quite often. The queen had suspected the dwarf of having a crush, and now, here, at the end of all things, the tension had finally clawed its way high enough that Natia had taken matters into her own hands.

It was a strange sight, to be sure, the elf and the short dwarf with her long arms. But it was passionate, and it was good, and Elissa could not begrudge them that.

It did make her fear for her dear husband, though.

Zevran and Morrigan also watched Natia with her elven paramour, the former with a small smile, the latter with a sneer. Elissa narrowed her eyes. The witch was utterly joyless.

And yet she walked with this cool – icy, really – confidence. And she eyed Alistair in a way that made Elissa reach for him despite not being a terribly jealous woman. And Alistair always pushed into her touch when Morrigan was around. It was strange, but Elissa merely chalked it up to their failed romance before the king and queen ever met. Surely that was all it was… right?

She could not muse on the subject any longer, however. Her breath would not come. A great pain seared through her back and into her chest, and it was with shock on her face that she simultaneously felt and saw her own sword – drenched in her own blood – emerge from just beneath her breasts.

* * *

"Elissa!" Zevran yelled, running forward immediately. Natia and Sorris separated, the dwarf also running for her injured comrade.

Morrigan, too, rushed over, her stomach sinking. Zevran leaped, driving his daggers into the nearly-dead ogre's belly. Natia was there a moment later, not slowing as she drove her long knives right into both the beast's eyes.

Morrigan, however, ran for Elissa, catching her as the ogre's grip on its weapon faltered. The queen was bleeding copiously, but the weapon spearing through her helped to keep it at bay. The woman was still awake, but her eyes were not focused. Her mouth moved as though she wished to speak, but no sound was made. Flecks of blood appeared on her lips.

She would die if Morrigan did not do something.

" _You owe me this, witch."_ Alistair's voice came to her unbidden, along with a rush of emotions dammed too long. They would not allow her to smother them any longer.

She loved that man. And he had loved her. He would have done everything for her, given her immense pleasure, shared his power with her. He might have made her his queen, if she had wanted that. She could have been happy. She could have _had him_ , had children with him, been the ruler of a nation.

Why was that not enough for her? She had driven him away. It had terrified her, his love. His devotion. His attempt to understand her, to accept her as she was with that mirror. So she had shut him out, driven him away, crushed his heart beneath her feet.

And now she held his heart in her hands once more, in the form of this young woman, impaled through the chest. They both carried his child. But Morrigan no longer carried his heart. Elissa did, and she needed help, and for once in her life Morrigan was moved to provide it.

Reaching deep inside herself, she began to chant. Healing magic of this magnitude was not something she enjoyed. It was not that she did not know how, though that was what she let Solona and Wynne believe. It was that it was exceedingly uncomfortable to connect with another person in this way. It was incredibly intimate, and required that she give of herself.

Her only experience of it was forced by Flemeth, so that Morrigan might learn. It was an intimacy she had never shared with her mother in any way, and rather than feel comforted by finally getting from Flemeth what most children received from their mothers without questioning, it had scarred Morrigan. Flemeth had taken and taken and left Morrigan spent and lying on the floor. She had then laughed and sent the young teenager out into the woods to fend for herself. It had been a lesson in survival.

And a lesson in cruelty.

Early on, Morrigan had learned that opening herself up to intimacy hurt, and that she should never do so again. Doing so now hurt almost as much, her fear something she was unable to hide or smother or sneer at. She was _afraid_ , but she did this thing anyway. She owed it to herself, to the man she had denied, to the love she would only acknowledge as important to her in this moment.

Incanting louder now, she gathered the energy, pushing it forward and opening up her life energies to this woman, using her body as a conduit for the healing, creative forces mages alone manipulated. Blue liquid light issued forth from her palms, flowing into Elissa Theirin's body and knitting muscle and vein. The sword was pushed slowly out as Morrigan worked, the bent and ragged edges of the woman's armor going with it, no longer protruding into the open wound that was swiftly mending.

At last, it was done. Elissa was breathing, unconscious, and Morrigan was left spent, raw and ragged and weeping for the lost intimacy. Elissa had not taken. Morrigan had given, but the queen had not taken more than was offered. In that moment, Morrigan saw truly what she had been missing. It was sweet and beautiful and part of Morrigan, the part Flemeth had created with her cruel ministrations, _hated_ it.

Sniffing, retrieving her staff, Morrigan found her feet. She fled, first walking, then running, not answering the calls from her companions. She must be away. She was now committed to this course of action, and even her own feelings on the matter could not get in the way now.

She fled, and she did not look back, not even when the great light burst forth from the top of Fort Drakon some time later.

* * *

"Where are you going, Morrigan?!" Zevran shouted, but the witch would not turn around, running now.

"Zevran, leave her! She's made her choice! We must get the queen to safety!" Natia shouted, pulling his attention back to the unconscious queen. Nodding, Zevran knelt, taking up his charge's legs while Natia grabbed under her shoulders.

"Sorris, Shianni, if you wouldn't mind leading us to a safe place?"

"I'm on it!" Shianni announced, rushing ahead. The alienage was empty now, elves and darkspawn alike taken care of. Soldiers of the king surrounded them, a murmur passing through their ranks as eyes took in the unconscious queen. They made way for the spritely redheaded elf, closing the gap behind Zevran as he and his companions followed Shianni to their house. Inside, all was quiet. They laid the queen upon a bed of straw-stuffed linens, removing her helm so she might breathe a little easier.

"Her pulse is strong," he murmured, removing his hand from her throat and turning to the commander of the soldiers out in the street. "You will protect the queen with your life, do you understand?"

The man stiffened to be addressed so by an elf, but he knew to whom he spoke. He gave a curt nod instead. "Yes, Master Zevran."

Zevran nodded. "Good. These elves here are in charge of her, and you are in charge of their defense. If something should happen to them that you or your men could have prevented, I will not wait to report it to the king – I will castrate the lot of you myself. Is _that_ understood?"

The man's eyes narrowed. But, again, he knew to whom he spoke. "Yes, _ser_."

Zevran didn't bother with the man any longer. Grasping Natia by the elbow from her position next to Sorris, he pulled her into an adjoining room.

"I must be off, Natia. I must leave you here with your friends and do what I can for my liege lord."

Natia nodded. "I know. Go find Wynne, Zevran. I will knock some heads about here should it come to that."

Zevran smiled. "You are a true friend, Natia. Thank you. And congratulations – I was wondering when you were going to bed one of them."

Natia's blush was immediate. "It was just a kiss!"

"Yes, but kisses lead to more." His grin faltered as he considered what he need do next. "Now go, be with him and his family. They will need you with all these hostile humans around. I must make my way across the city."

Nodding, she turned to go back to the queen. Zevran, however, left through the window, not wanting any of the soldiers to see him. Let them think him still here, watching them.

"I am coming, my love," he whispered, running for Fort Drakon. _If this is the end of all things, then I would have us together for it._


	71. The Final Battle

"Riordan!"

The man disappeared behind the skyline. They didn't see him hit the ground, didn't hear his body slam against the cobblestones, but they didn't need to. He was dead. There was no way he could be alive after a fall like that. And not only was he dead, but his body would be utterly unrecognizable after falling from such a height.

Riordan was no more, but the archdemon was still very much alive.

It was now down to Solona.

The mage turned her head back up to see that Riordan had at least caused some damage to the beast. One of its wings flapped uselessly, and it was on a less-than-gentle descent toward Fort Drakon.

"Well, at least we were headed there anyway," Solona said darkly. Alistair laughed, seemingly despite himself. Shaking her head, Solona sighed. "He was a good man, even if he didn't understand me."

An armored hand appeared on her shoulder, another, more slender hand intertwining with her own. They stood that way silently for a moment, Solona thinking on the last few minutes. Riordan had climbed the smaller tower of the palace, as the archdemon seemed to keep passing by there, sending Solona and the others on without him. They had watched with bated breath as he had appeared at the top of a tower, immediately pulling his sword and sprinting before launching himself as far from the edge as he could get. Two timeless moments later he landed on the great flying beast, driving his sword between two scales as an anchor.

Solona could not make out the details of the short confrontation, but shortly before Riordan fell he had plunged his wicked dagger into the dragon's wing, taking the thing's ability to fly away out of the equation before he met his end. It was a worthy gift to give his fellow wardens, as well as those throughout the city – now the soul-sucking flames were confined to one place.

Taking a deep breath, Solona strengthened her resolve. "Come on. We still have a job to do. We can mourn Riordan – and everyone else who has fallen – later."

"Well said," Wynne murmured, turning toward the giant doors to Fort Drakon. "Let us go and finish this."

* * *

The fort was full of darkspawn. Bodies littered the floor, but Solona and her companions barely paid them mind, dealing death to every tainted creature at every turn. One floor, then two, and then they were running breathlessly up the stairs to get to the roof. Oddly, there was nobody else on the steps.

 _They must all be on the roof_ , Solona thought to herself, running doggedly forward, refusing to slow, to tire. If she stopped now, she would never get going again. Not with all that she risked losing by this insane venture.

The stairs were interminable. But she knew she was getting closer to her quarry, as the fingertips dancing along her skull had dug in, excrutiating, setting her teeth permanently on edge. Her whole body sang with tension. One look askance at Alistair confirmed similar feelings in her fellow warden. They were so _close_ they could taste it. They just needed to kill this thing. That was it. Then, this feeling would go away, and _no more_ people would die.

As they neared the top of the tower, sounds of battle could be heard. It didn't sound like her side was doing well. Men screamed, a beast bellowed its roar, and as she ran for the final doorway out to the rooftop, a body flew through it. Dodging, Solona turned to see a young face – so much younger than herself.

"That poor boy," Wynne muttered. It was quiet, but Solona felt it as a shouted accusation.

Looking up, the Warden-Commander took one last step, rounding the corner that would put the archdemon in her line of sight.

The beast was monstrous. Its head alone was the length of Solona, even longer if one included the fringe of spikes coming out the back of its skull. Its scales looked to be made of metal, and wickedly sharp at that. Out of the front of its mouth jutted great teeth the size of a person, thick and long and glistening with the blood of those it had already skewered. Looking closer, Solona saw a body impaled upon one of those great teeth, arms and legs flailing as the beast moved its head to and fro.

Her gorge rose with the sight, though she did manage to keep it down.

Solona forced herself to take in the rest of the battlefield, even though every fiber of her being screamed at her to take down the monster in front of her. The great ballistae along the battlements caught her eye immediately, pointed outward as if to ward off a siege of the fort. But the threat was now within.

"Leliana, Wynne, Alistair – grab those you can and go to the ballistae! We must wear it down!" she shouted, hoping to be heard above the deafening roar of the archdemon.

"What will you do?!" Leliana shouted in return.

Solona's voice was multi-toned as she pulled her glowing sword. "I will distract the fiend." Turning her head, she pointed to the walls. "Now go."

Love and worry and hope all warred in Leliana's blue eyes. "I love you, Solona. Come back to me if you can."

Solona didn't answer. Instead she grasped Leliana about the waist and pulled the bard to her, pouring everything she could into what might be their final kiss.

She let go and was running in the same breath, eyes now firmly on the archdemon in front of her.

* * *

" _Merde_ ," Leliana whispered, watching Solona run from her. Then she, too, turned, running for the nearest soldier. "You, ser! Help me turn the ballista!"

The man, a dwarf holding an axe not unlike Oghren's, nodded. "Aye, lass! Not sure my axe would be much use against this beastie anyway!"

They grabbed several of his comrades as they went, and together, dwarves and humans alike had one ballista turned. Grabbing a missile from the stash along the wall, Leliana loaded the thing as Alistair and one of the dwarves cranked it. Drawing on her knowledge of how crossbows fired, Leliana aimed carefully, willing herself not to worry about accidentally hitting her lover.

"Fire!" she yelled, and Alistair hit the release. The projectile flew, and, true to Leliana's aim, it struck the archdemon in its flank. It reared back, screaming in pain as it loosed blue flames into the air. It then pushed off from the roof of the fort, attempting to fly away, but its ruined wing disallowed it, and the beast came tumbling down not far from where it started.

Suddenly, a powerful surge of energy passed the bard, released at a shout from Wynne. It traversed the space between them and the archdemon in the blink of an eye, and then the creature's uninjured wing sagged to the floor. A moment's examination revealed to Leliana that it was now made of stone, inflexible and utterly useless.

It was now stuck.

She grinned. "Go turn the others!" Leliana ordered, not taking her eyes from the archdemon as she helped Alistair to crank the ballista. "We must wear it down from all sides!"

The dwarves ran off to do as she bid.

They could do this. All they had to do was keep Solona alive until she could kill the creature, drag it into the Fade and destroy it there.

They could do this.

Leliana could _do_ this.

* * *

Solona barely got a chance to strike at the great dragon with her sword before she was tossed back. Sailing through the air, she sent a blast of ice its way to try to slow it down. She had no idea if it worked, however, because the next thing she knew her shoulder was slamming hard into the wall.

She felt it crack and break, but paid it no mind. Instead, she got to her feet, watching the dragon as her bones mended themselves. Suddenly, the beast reared back and tried to take off, only to fall to the ground once more. Then its other wing was turned to stone, and Solona was laughing madly at the ingenuity of her mentor.

"Wynne, you saucy minx!"

The great dragon turned, abandoning Solona in favor of destroying the ballistae. A strange feeling settled in Solona's stomach, and it was with a startling clarity of mind – something she was often bereft of as she channeled her power – that she realized it had chosen Leliana as its target.

"No!"

She reached for her power, dragging all of it up where she had only sipped before. Time seemed to stretch and expand, and then suddenly it stopped altogether. She had done it!

She was straddling the Veil!

She existed everywhere at once.

Overlaying all in front of her were the moving spirits of the dead and dying, straddling the Veil right along with her. Colors exploded everywhere… except for the archdemon. It sucked the energy out of everything around it, appearing as dull and void of color when she focused upon it. Its mouth was caught open, its gaping maw showing her soft flesh inside. She could perceive it from all angles, feel the chill of its body and the heat of its flames. She could see her lover and her brother, both frozen, a look of determination on their faces as Leliana aimed the ballista squarely inside the mouth that attempted to spurt flames at her.

Solona's heart filled with pride, at both Leliana's stubbornness to do what damage she could to the fiend, and at her cleverness for using the archdemon's one weakness – its soft mouth.

In that moment, Solona knew what to do.

Time continued forward smoothly as the arcane warrior chose which realm to walk in. Speeding forth, she covered her hands in ice, letting it overtake her whole body until she could _feel_ the vapors running off of her in the sweltering heat caused by the archdemon's flames. Raising her sword, she drove it between razor-sharp scales, thoroughly recalling the attention of the dragon. As it turned its head it was struck by Leliana's missile, the force of the projectile not enough to pass through the dragon's armor. But it did jolt the dragon's head to the side.

It shook its head, clearly dazed for a moment. Solona took advantage of its momentary loss of focus, pulling her sword from the dragon's side and rushing for its mouth. She watched as its eyes focused, pure malignant contempt veritably dripping from its gaze. It did not consider Solona a threat.

It was wrong.

A scream the likes of which the world had never known fell from her lips as she threw herself bodily into that mouth, the blue, soul-sucking flames just starting to issue forth. She did not feel the teeth impale her, did not hear her lover's shriek, could not see her sword as she drove it up into the roof of the dragon's mouth.

All she could sense was its evil, malignant soul, a force that only wished one thing – utter chaos. Reaching with her mind, she wrapped it in a vice-grip and pulled, plunging through the curtain that separated her from the Fade.

Only when she got there… she was alone.


	72. The Aftermath

"Solona!" Leliana yelled, abandoning her ballista and running full-tilt for the dragon. Her lover, iced and steaming, was clamped in its jaw. But as she neared, she saw that Solona's sword jutted up through the top of the beast's head, and that the mage had fallen – _whole and intact, thank the Maker!_ – from its jaws onto the stones of Fort Drakon. The dragon came to a stop, its body coming to rest, just as Leliana reached her lover.

"Solona!" she called again, grabbing the mage's shoulders, pulling her head into her lap. The Commander of the Grey was completely limp, unconscious, no longer covered in ice. Her armor was punctured, great gaping holes in the metal, one shoulder pauldron missing entirely, the leather straps frayed and burned. Most of her gambeson was gone, burned away, as well as the skullcap she wore to avoid discomfort from her helm.

Reaching for the straps now, Leliana removed the helm. "My love, please. Please come back." She didn't hear the sob in her words, barely felt the tears that clouded her vision. All she saw was Solona's chest rising and falling. She stared, _willing_ it to keep moving, for that meant Solona was still alive.

Suddenly she was aware of a bright light all around her. Turning, she saw that the great dragon was glowing, and it was growing ever brighter. In seconds it was blinding, and Leliana turned her head, burying her face in Solona's chest.

After a moment the light changed, no longer all around her. Looking back, Leliana saw a column of light rising from the dragon's head, piercing the clouds above the city. It was… good, somehow. It reminded her of the lancing of a wound, the evil fleeing and leaving a glorious feeling of roominess behind. She hadn't realized how cloying its presence had been until it was gone.

A high-pitched hum reverberated around them, barely perceptible at first, but growing in intensity very quickly until it keened all around her. Leliana's heart hammered in her chest. She could not shake the feeling that something was about to happen. She didn't know what, though.

The light grew so intense that she had to turn away again. A great cacophonous sound burst forth, accompanied by a searing heat.

The explosion was the last thing she heard.

* * *

The darkspawn ran.

"That's right, you sorry sons of bitches!" the foul-smelling dwarf shouted. "Run fer yer mommas!"

Sten narrowed his eyes, his _Asala_ in a relaxed grip now that his enemies were fleeing. "The darkspawn come from the broodmother. They would not _run_ to it."

"Shut yer trap, Sten! It's just a damn expression!"

Sten hummed low in his throat. His eyes drifted upward, and he saw a great column of light. That was where the archdemon had gone down. This must mean it was dead. The wardens had succeeded. Now all there was to discover was the fate of the wardens. Had it been the eldest one they found in the dungeon? Sten hoped so. The eldest warriors deserved a proper death, and taking down the archdemon was a _worthy_ way to meet that end.

The human soldiers around them began cheering, archers putting arrows in the backs of the fleeing darkspawn. Sten did not join them, but he enjoyed the energy around him. It was victory. Victory was to be enjoyed by the victors. They had restored order where there had been chaos. The Qun demanded it, and he had done so. Yes. He would enjoy this victory and bring news of it back to his Arishok.

Wiping his _Asala_ clean, Sten returned it to the scabbard on his back, eyes still up on the column of light. It was growing in intensity, and then suddenly it withdrew, a great explosion taking its place. A shockwave of purple light burst from the top of the fort, seeming to suck up the air around them before they were buffeted by a strong, hot blast of wind.

Sten grunted. Those atop the tower were likely thrown to the ground, if not injured outright, by the force of that blast. He hoped his _kadan_ lived, that the other warden could continue ruling this land until the qunari conquered it and made its people submit to the Qun. He would be a good leader, a force for Order rather than Chaos.

Turning from the fort, Sten saw that Max was panting nearby, his muzzle covered in darkspawn blood and his head turned curiously. Sten reached into the pouch on his belt, withdrawing the wooden box Solona had made and filled for him, since he and the hound were often together. Opening it, he withdrew the paste made from the flower that cleansed the hound's stomach of the tainted blood. The dog dutifully lapped it up, immediately rolling over for a bellyrub.

Sten obliged. The dog deserved to celebrate in his own way. He had done well. Sten did not know if his master was alive, but if she was, the dog could sleep well that night knowing he had done her bidding.

Any hound would be pleased to know that for himself.

Standing once more, Sten turned to the closest human soldier. "Come. We must burn the dead. Gather everyone you can, human."

The man looked up frightfully, nodded, and scampered off. Sten just narrowed his eyes. He would never truly understand these people.

* * *

Wynne raised herself from where she lay. The explosion had thrown everyone who had been standing to the ground. Her back protested it with a vengeance. She would need a hot bath and several cups of wine to get sleep this night.

But it did not matter. The archdemon was slain. The Blight was over. She would be _able_ get that bath and that wine and that sleep. If not this night, then the next. She could not ask for more.

Stretching her arms and cracking her neck, Wynne gathered up her staff and turned to where the archdemon had been, gasping in shock when her eyes took in the scene.

The archdemon's body was no more. The stones were scorched, cracked. At the center of it lay two smoking bodies. Wynne's heart dropped through her stomach.

"Solona! Leliana!"

Wynne ran forward as fast as she could make her legs move. She heard shuffling steps behind her, knew it must be Alistair. He was likely injured. But if he could move himself then he was doing far better than the Warden-Commander and her lover.

Leliana was all black, cracked skin. Her head was bald, weeping cracks in the charred surface showing white bone underneath. Clothing and armor was ripped and blasted away, though there was no need for modesty, as the body of the young woman was nearly unrecognizable as a woman's.

Solona lay in a similar state, though already she was beginning to heal, the skin knitting, pushing the blackened flesh up and away. And _her_ armor, enchanted against darkspawn taint as it was, lay intact. Distantly, Wynne recognized this as a good thing. It meant her soul still existed, was still tied to her body, and she yet lived. She was successful, possibly still fighting the monster in the Fade.

But Leliana had no power to restore her health in this manner.

If Wynne did not intervene, Leliana would perish.

The decision was not difficult to make. The help _must_ come from Wynne. It would likely kill her, but Wynne could not be concerned with such things.

She plunged forward, calling for the Spirit so that she might save this young woman who had become, in many ways, like her own child. To ask her to do anything else would be akin to asking her to sit by idly and watch her child die – it was antithetical to her nature, and she could not do it. The Spirit approved. She and it – the dual-natured being they had both become – would perish in only a handful of years anyway. This was an agreeable way to meet the end. Together, they would enter the Fade, become part of the raw material of the spirit world, awaiting their reformation as new life.

Wynne's only regret was that she would not see Zevran again. She did not wish to hurt him so. But she trusted that he would understand her need to do this, that he would not begrudge her this very fundamental piece of her nature. She did wish she could speak with him, look upon him, make love to him just one more time. The sweet man. The poor man. She could only trust he had healed enough that he would continue to flourish.

* * *

Alistair watched Wynne pluck Leliana up from the ground. He knew it was Leliana only because Solona's body was healing itself, thus was recognizable. He reached the mage, limping though he was, as a blue liquid light began to shine forth from her.

Wynne sat amidst the wreckage of Fort Drakon, resplendent beauty amid blackened, charred, cracked stone. She cradled Leliana to her chest, the bard's bald, blackened head tucked up underneath her chin protectively. It looked to Alistair of a mother holding her child.

The gentle blue glow enveloped the two of them before continuing outward. The cracked ground immediately around them began to mend. The light reached Alistair, filling him with a joy and serenity so profound he knew he would never know its like again. Those not already dead around him began to exclaim as they, too, were filled with this energy. Alistair's broken leg mended itself, the bones popping back into place, his posture straightening as he watched Leliana's skin knit back together, blackened flesh sloughing off to make way for fresh, healthy tissue.

The energy continued to radiate outward even as Alistair knelt, ready to aid Wynne once she was through. It was good, and right, and the joy humming through him was almost too much. He would burst soon, he knew it. But he did not mind. Leliana's skin was mended, her hair growing – as was his own, necessitating the removal of his helm – and her lashes fluttering. Her chest rose and fell with life-giving breath, and he rejoiced that his friend and sister would be here with him to celebrate the end of the Blight.

The light faded all of a sudden. Wynne slumped to the floor, Leliana going down with her. Alistair reached for her, gathering her up as her eyes fluttered open.

"Alistair?" she breathed, her hand stealing up to his face. "What… what happened?"

Alistair's joy was swiftly turning to worry. Wynne's eyes were closed and she was not moving. Letting go of a very naked Leliana, he lunged for the elder mage, not liking how limp her figure was. Her chest was not rising. Pulling off his gauntlet with his teeth, he pressed his hand against her throat.

No pulse.

"No! Wynne, you can't… you can't go, Wynne!" he yelled, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her.

There was no response.

"Alistair?"

The king turned to Leliana with tears stinging his eyes. He saw a look of utter confusion on her face. "Leliana, Wynne…"

"Alistair, I can't hear you."

Furrowing his brows, Alistair tried again. "Leliana, you were hurt, and Wynne…" He just couldn't say it.

Now Leliana's eyes were widening, her gaze shifting to her surroundings. "I can't… I can't hear _anything_."

Behind her, Solona's form began to stir, and then the arcane warrior was sitting up on the flagstones. Zevran appeared out of a doorway behind her, racing toward them.

Leliana had no hearing. Wynne was dead.

Alistair didn't know what to do.

* * *

Zevran ran. He took the stairs up the tower three at a time, but still it felt he was making no progress. He fell backwards when the explosion rocked the fort, dust falling in a manner that made it clear this building was _old_. He could only assume it had something to do with the archdemon. He hoped it was _against_ the archdemon, and not against his comrades. Not against his dear Wynne.

He found his feet once more, racing up the steps as fast as he could make his feet move. Something told him he _must_ make it up these steps.

He burst forth from the threshold at the top of the stairs to a scene he could not quite decipher. The ground was blackened. The stones were cracked. Familiar figures – Solona, Leliana, Alistair – sat upon the ground. Alistair held Wynne, lying upon the ground, by the shoulders. Leliana was completely naked, her skin flawless; the scars, he noted in the back of his mind, were completely gone. Half of Solona's armor seemed to hang oddly from her, giving her a strange shape.

Alistair's eyes held a look of panic.

"What happened?" Zevran demanded, coming to a halt only once he reached them. His eyes found Wynne lying prone on the ground, and the angle of her neck made his heart sink.

"Zevran, she's… she saved Leliana, and she…" Alistair couldn't seem to say it.

"Move," the elf commanded, taking Alistair's place.

Everything about his love's body spoke peace. Her face was in the most serene of expressions, even a slight smile to the lips. Her eyes were closed, relaxed. Not a muscle was tense.

The only problem was that she was not in that body any longer. It seemed… small, somehow. _How did all of her fit inside such a tiny body?_

"No!" he shouted, pulling her face up, trying to will life back into her. But it was no use. He could not even try to trick himself. There was no life left in this body.

He picked up her shoulders, pulling her up and hugging her to him. Wynne was gone. He had found his love and lost her again, and again it was his fault. He did not raise the dagger this time, but if he had only been here then maybe he could have done something to stop this.

He wept. The tears overcame him all of a sudden, and it was with a great heaving breath that he sobbed his grief. Burying his face in her neck, still warm from life despite her essence no longer residing in this body, he wept. He thought of her skin sliding along his as they made love, of the safe feeling of home when he would climax within her. He thought of her sweet breath, tinged with spirits on the hard nights, as she slept. He thought of her affection for the people around him now. She was their mother, and his lover, and she was no more.

No matter how he wanted it, no matter how he willed it, she would never _be_ again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Ducks* Please don't hate me?
> 
> I took actual life experience with the end section. Many of Zevran's thoughts are what I thought when I saw my mother's body in the ICU. It's not so fresh anymore, but still I remember it well. And at the time that I wrote this, I was coming up on the first anniversary of my mother's death. I can only assume that this is why this section, in Zevran's voice, demanded to be written.


	73. Picking Up The Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Raven Sinead for continuing to beta this and give me ideas. She didn't write the opening paragraph, per se, but I took what she wrote as a possible starting line and changed all the imagery to sounds and music. So it's really a hybrid of the two of us. Enjoy!

Music. Music was art, beauty given shape, life personified through combinations of seemingly simple sounds. But this new world had been composed in a single tone of horror, and nothing was beautiful and nothing made sense. The music, the beauty, was gone.

Wynne was dead. Zevran wept, as did Solona and Alistair. And Leliana was left in a world that pulsed and hummed without form, the only sound she consistently heard the swishing of her blood being pushed rapidly through her veins.

And over all of that, she wept. Tears flowed down her face as Zevran swept his love's body into his arms, turning for the doorway that would take them inside the fort. She wept with her face turned toward Solona as the mage held her to her side, an oversized cloak or rag from the battlefield draped over the bard's shoulders for decency's sake.

All down the steps the tears flowed, but in the back of her mind Leliana started to panic. She was having trouble with the stairs, needing Solona's aid; her balance was off. And she had not told Solona she could not hear. She did not know what had happened. The last thing she had heard was the explosion from the archdemon. Then she had awoken, naked, lying against Wynne's prone form. Alistair had begun to help her up, but… she couldn't hear him.

She couldn't hear anything. It was like jamming her fingers into her ears as hard as she could, but without the pressure. Additionally, there was no pain. She remembered absolutely no pain. And yet she had been right next to the explosion, her armor in charred pieces around her, and her hair brushing her chin instead of in the long braid it had been secured in that morning. And now her hearing was gone, and she had no idea if it would come back. She could only assume that she had been horrifically injured.

So why was her body whole?

_Oh, Maker._ _**That's** _ _how Wynne died. She called on her spirit like she did in the Deep Roads. She warned us that doing so again may very well kill her, and it did. All because I foolishly went running for Solona. Maker, but I am a fool!_

The guilt was palpable. Leliana was ashamed. She deserved far more than this lack of hearing for taking such a beautiful soul from this world. Wynne was light and beauty and a tender, warm, healing influence upon the world. Leliana was a selfish, trained killer who couldn't bear to wait a whole minute to make sure everything was safe before running for her love. So she walked with no mention to Solona of the deafness for the time being, wallowing in her misery, her grief, and her discomfort and disorientation.

And yet a quiet voice – not even a voice, more like a vibration humming in the background – was very grateful that Solona's plan had worked, that she still had her lover alive to be with her another day.

* * *

Solona exited the Fade confused. The archdemon had not been there. She had wrapped her will around it, pulled it with her, but when she opened her eyes to the familiar sight of the raw Fade, she had been alone. She had reached out her awareness – space in the Fade was an illusion created for the sake of familiarity – but she detected no other tainted presence.

She was alone.

So what happened to the archdemon?

She crossed the Veil once more, opening her eyes in the physical world, immediately sitting up and looking around. The stones were blackened and cracked, though not in the immediate space around her. Leliana sat naked upon the flagstones, her hair short like it had been when they met, almost a year before. She realized her own hair was far _longer_ than usual. Alistair, also with chin-length hair, knelt over Wynne, who lay prone on the ground.

But there were no darkspawn, no archdemon. No tainted presence of any kind. What in the devil had _happened_?

She needed to speak with Alistair. But only a couple of seconds' time made it clear something was wrong. Then Zevran was past her, yelling and weeping into Wynne's neck.

And then it hit the Warden-Commander that Wynne was dead. Solona had no idea how it happened, but there was no denying that the limp body of her former mentor held the woman's spirit no more. Tears overwhelmed her, and she wept, not aware of how Leliana ended up in her arms, merely holding the small woman to her.

She took the offered scrap of a tapestry from the dwarven soldier, covering Leliana in it and then holding her as they followed in a procession after Zevran.

"Take her to the palace," Alistair ordered his soldiers as they reached the great doors leading outside. "Escort him. She will be honored properly. She helped kill the archdemon. She helped end the Blight. She is a mage, and a hero, and we shall honor her now she is gone."

Soldiers of all races took up the march behind Zevran. Humans, dwarves, and elves alike gathered around him, escorting him to the palace as he carried his dead lover in his arms. There was an air of respect, an aura of honor, hovering around them as they walked, and it moved Solona deeply. This was the reason they spent so much time gathering the peoples of Ferelden together. To build an army, yes, but more than that it was to unite this country's people in a single cause: to protect their land. And now they would sing of this hero, and the bitter child of the Circle within Solona wept for the changes to come.

There was still business to attend to, however, so Solona kept Alistair and Leliana behind. She needed to speak with them. The Blight was done. There would be time to mourn. Even if it had not happened as she had thought it would, her confrontation with the archdemon had at least bought them that time.

She needed to speak with them about what had happened away from others, see if there was some answer they came up with that she could not.

"Leliana, Alistair, we need to speak right now," she said hurriedly, grabbing his shoulder and dragging them both into an abandoned house. Leliana stumbled, confusing Solona, but the mage merely corrected it, her arm around the bard's shoulder as it was.

Once inside, she released her lover so she could close the door behind Alistair. "I need to tell you what happened. I don't sense the archdemon any longer, but-"

Alistair's voice sounded. "Solona."

She just kept going, turning around to look at him. "- it wasn't there when I awoke in the Fade, and-"

"Solona."

"-I'm worried about what this might mean. Why am I here if I could not succeed in dragging it-"

"Solona!"

Solona finally stopped talking, the look in Leliana's eyes and _not_ Alistair's insistence the thing that halted her completely.

Wide blue eyes stared up at her. They were filled with tears. The bard shook her head slowly, her lips trembling.

Alistair put his hand on the bard's shoulder. "Solona, Leliana can't hear us."

The touch threw Leliana over the edge, and Solona immediately found the small woman sobbing in her arms. Great shuddering convulsions shook the bard's frame, and it was all Solona could do to hug her more tightly.

"Alistair, what happened?!"

Alistair's eyes also swam in tears, though they did not fall. "Wynne… Leliana was hurt in the blast. You were, as well, but your body healed. Wynne… Wynne… died… saving Leliana. I watched her pick Leliana up, and then she closed her eyes and was surrounded in that blue Spirit-healing light. She healed me and everyone alive atop the fort, too. But… Leliana couldn't hear me when she awoke."

Solona was aghast. She had no idea what healing magic was capable of. Wynne was the expert on that. The arcane warrior had learned a great deal about healing, had even learned to cast healing spells while channeling her arcane energy, but still she could not heal another as well or as fast as she did herself. She did not know all the theory behind it.

And besides, if Wynne perished healing Leliana, then it was no normal magic. It had to have been the participation of her Spirit. She had expended the last of her life force in restoring Leliana's life.

Perhaps there simply was not enough left to restore the bard's hearing. Or perhaps healing magic could not heal something like this.

"We will get through this," Solona murmured, despite the fact that Leliana could not hear her. Her eyes fixed on Alistair's, she continued. "We killed the archdemon and stopped the Blight. We can do _anything_. This will be all right."

The king nodded, a few of the tears in his eyes finally shaking loose.

* * *

Alistair watched as Solona held a sobbing Leliana. The mage rocked the bard back and forth, murmuring softly in her ear, even though she would not be heard. It broke his heart, and yet made him smile. Even when encountering this hardship, Solona did not give up heart. They would manage, and his fellow warden's love for the bard was as strong as ever.

Solona's words caught up with him, however, and it was with a heart full of guilt at interrupting them and shame at what he'd done with Morrigan to ensure Solona's survival that he got her attention.

"Solona, I… I know why the archdemon didn't go into the Fade with you…"

Her gaze, unfocused as she comforted her lover, settled back on him, confusion in her eyes. "What? How?"

"I… Morrigan came to me when she came back from the woods. She told me of a ritual. It would… it involved making a child that would bear the taint. The child would attract the Old God's soul upon the archdemon's death, leaving the Grey Warden who killed it alive."

He watched as Solona's gaze went from confusion to shock, all the way to razor-sharp wrath. But still he continued. Now he had started, he must finish.

"She offered me a way ensure I have heirs, so Ferelden is not left in the same position Cailan left it. She offered me a way to save you. She offered me a way to save myself, so I did not leave Elissa alone without me, after she has lost so _much_." He gestured uselessly. "I… I took her up on her offer, Solona."

Solona's eyes narrowed. Leliana had stilled, no longer sobbing, instead having turned to look at Alistair. She obviously had no idea of what he spoke, but doubtless she had noted Solona's expression and body language. And could see the look on Alistair's face. He knew he wore his feelings on his face nearly as much as Solona did.

Solona's tone was scathing. "You did _what_?! Where is she now?"

His heart pounded against his ribs. "She's gone, Solona. She restored my virility, allowed me to make a child with my queen. In return, she would leave, and I would not follow her."

"Then you should not have made such a hasty promise!" she shouted. Leliana startled as Solona moved toward Alistair, raising her voice. "And what now, Alistair? We are Grey Wardens! You have betrayed _everything_! Just so you could seed this land with your _progeny_! How _could_ you?!"

Alistair just shrugged, unwilling to defend himself. She was right, but he also felt justified in his decision. Besides that, it was already done, and there was no changing it now. "I did it for you, Solona. I did it for you, and Leliana, and Elissa… and I did it for me. I couldn't stand losing you to this if there was _anything_ I could have done to prevent it." He shrugged again. "You're my sister, Solona. Family, the people you love… they're worth saving… aren't they?"

Her eyes lost their edge at that. Shaking her head, she fussed for a moment over Leliana's cloak. Then she straightened, looking back to him. "We cannot tell anyone. The Order in Weishaupt cannot know, or our lives are surely forfeit. But… thank you, Alistair. You have given me time to help Leliana through this. And perhaps if I ever find Morrigan, I can extricate the Old God's soul from her child, and finally succeed in destroying it in the Fade."

Alistair nodded. Spying Leliana's bare feet, he spoke once more. "Come. We must get to the palace, get Leliana some clothes, get all of us cleaned up." His gaze found Solona's slate-grey eyes once more. "We have the funeral of a hero to plan."

* * *

Elissa moved stiffly, every step causing pain deep in her chest and back. But the archdemon was dead, the darkspawn having turned tail and run, and she would be damned if she did not get to the palace to celebrate with her husband. She needed to know that he survived. And if Solona survived as well, then all the better.

She had awoken sore and confused, but Natia had explained Morrigan's odd behavior with a shrug. They had no idea why she left, but she did, and Natia and Zevran had chosen to take care of the queen rather than chase after the harpy of a woman.

Elissa couldn't blame them. Though Morrigan working to save her life puzzled the queen. Perhaps she was struck by some strange altruistic urge late in life? Perhaps she _had_ had feelings for Alistair, and this was her strange way of honoring them?

Whatever the reason, it sounded like the woman was gone. Elissa had asked the soldiers to begin inquiring and see what might have happened to the witch. Perhaps in the ordering of the chaos that was Denerim after the battle she would be found and the queen could thank her.

Now, though, she wanted only to find out if Alistair lived. And she needed to speak with Wynne, to know if the new life within her, so young and tenuous as it was, had escaped the darkspawn ogre's blow.

They were almost to the palace now. Natia's elven friends were with them at the queen's insistence, as the alienage was deserted and most of the homes destroyed. Food would be difficult to get their hands on. Blood seeped into the ground and the dead bodies would reek fairly soon. She assured them she would make sure the alienage was cleaned up, and also put word to her soldiers and the city's guardsmen that any elves wandering the city streets should be urged to seek refuge at the palace. If not her fault, then it was her _office's_ fault that the elves had been here and lost so many during the Blight anyway, so she would do what she could to house and feed them until their homes could be restored.

Now she just needed to make sure some of the more bigoted among her soldier's ranks would do as ordered.

Elissa sighed as the palace gates came into view, both in aggravation and in relief. She was sore and exhausted, worried sick but keeping up a noble face for her troops. In addition, she was incredibly happy, as the Blight had been stopped! It was a confusing mix of emotions to be feeling all at once, and it only served to further exhaust her.

"Hail! The queen returns!"

A great cheer went up through the courtyard as they were hurriedly ushered through the gates. Elissa smiled. The cheering was infectious. But she still needed information.

"You, ser," she said, addressing the soldier with the officer's plumes upon his helm who stood near the palace entrance.

He straightened. "Yes, your Majesty?"

"The king. I must know how he fared. I was not with him atop the tower."

"The king lives, your Majesty."

The world stopped for a moment. Elissa nearly collapsed in her relief. "Oh, thank the Maker," she murmured, grasping his arm both for support and in camaraderie.

He smiled. "He will be glad to know his queen fares so well, to be sure."

"And the others that went with him?"

The corners of his mouth turned down, and Elissa's heart came hammering back into her ribs. Who was it? Who had not made it? "The elder warden perished, your Majesty. His heroic actions allowed his brethren to trap the dragon atop the fort, but he did not survive. And… the elder mage, as well. It is unclear precisely what happened – the men who were there reported a bright blue light touching them before their wounds and broken bones knitted back together. But when it was gone, she lay dead upon the stones."

Elissa's heart ached. She had only known Wynne a few short months. But she knew that Zevran loved her deeply, and that all of her companions viewed her as a mother of sorts, but none so strongly as Alistair. He would be mourning her for some time, and poor Zevran would be _devastated_. She hoped he could recover from such a terrible loss.

Silently the queen thanked the Maker and any other deities that might exist for her luck. She mourned Wynne's loss, but she had not lost anyone else close to her. She was not sure she could take more loss after the sudden and violent way her parents were torn from her.

Focusing her gaze upon the commander in front of her once more, she straightened. "Take me to my husband, ser. I would be with him during this most glorious and mournful of occasions."

Nodding, the man turned, leading Elissa into the palace.


	74. The Funeral

Zevran took a deep breath. This was his time to speak. He barely knew what to say. But he was moved to speak, and he would not fail his love in this.

"The Chant of Light reads, 'Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children.'" The elf took another deep breath, aware of the eyes on him. He knew he was going to piss a lot of people off, in fact already was just by being an elf, but he owed it to his beloved Wynne, and his friends standing here with him. "It also reads, 'Blessed are they who stand before the corruption and the wicked and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers and the champions of the just.'

"Wynne was all of these things. She was a mage of the Circle, believing in its mission and accepting its rules. She was a teacher to many, a student to others who have already passed. She was a healer and a mother and a lover and she stood before the wicked and _did not bow_. She gave her life to save so many others, and if she were to die doing anything, I would have it be that.

"At her heart, Wynne was a healer. She healed many of our bodies. She healed some of our minds, taking the broken pieces of our past hurts and mending them with her words and her concern and her love. For me, she healed my very soul. I came to this country lost and hurt and alone and wishing death to end my misery. I found instead a family, and in time the greatest love I have ever allowed myself to know. And she did it as effortlessly as I might speak in my native tongue."

 _Brace yourself. This is where you will truly anger the Chantry, Zevran_.

"The Grand Cleric, Maker bless her, skipped over these details today." He noticed a ripple through the crowd, the frowns on the faces of the templars, confusion on the faces of the mages in attendance, not yet returned to the Circle. "Wynne was a _powerful_ mage, ladies and gentlemen. She did not merely tinker in the arcane arts in the Circle, teaching and healing and nothing else. She left the Circle to aid the Grey Wardens, because she knew she was powerful enough to make a difference. She healed us, guided us, and oft times scolded us, and in the end she gave all of herself to bring life to those around her so that _they_ might celebrate the end of this Blight. She may not have made the final strike against the archdemon, but it was a mage of incredible power and skill that saved all of us.

"More are capable of such feats, were they but allowed to truly master their powers. The Chantry keeps them away from the citizenry, locked in a tower in the middle of a lake, keeping their Maker-given powers away from us. They could heal the sick, bless the crops, and keep your children's bellies full. They could aid in the defense of cities and villages alike. But instead we keep them locked away, and persecute those who might try to run, and who are _justified_ in wanting out of their cage.

"The complete jailing of mages must end. I cannot say anything but the truth on this. _It must end_. Imagine how many lives could have been saved had these mages less restrictions on their every move? There must be a better way. I challenge you to think on this as you think on magic. Andraste said that magic must not be used to bring the inhabitants of this world under the user's yoke, but instead only to serve the user's fellows. We so often focus on the first part, but the second part is just as important.

"Some mages do awful things, but some _people_ also do awful things. And we punish them. But we do not punish all people simply because they are capable of doing awful things. We do our best to teach them right, and then punish them if they do wrong. And we reward those who do right."

Zevran paused a moment, eyes falling to Wynne's casket, closed at his request – he did not wish to look upon the face of an empty shell. He wished to remember her as she lived, with a twinkle in her eyes that stole his breath away for the mischief that twinkle promised. "Wynne worked hard to only add good to the world. We must act in kind. Her love was boundless, and she judged no one hastily. She set us an incredible example, and I will do my best to learn from her even while she is no longer with me."

The tears finally threatened now, but they did not fall. He would weep more later, in private, but not now. Not in front of all these people. "Goodbye Wynne, my dearest love. I wish we could have had more time together, but it is fitting that you died as you lived – loving and healing with all your being, without hesitation. It brings me great comfort to know I never need question your love for me."

He left the altar in silence. A murmur rose in the crowd, but that was it. Apparently, he had succeeded in getting people to think without inciting an outcry.

Zevran smiled for the first time since he had seen the archdemon above Denerim.

* * *

The Chantry was not happy with Alistair after Zevran's speech at Wynne's funeral. The Grand Cleric, who had miraculously chosen to reside over the funeral of a mage who had left the Circle, spent the rest of the funeral subtly decrying those who practiced magic. But Alistair did not care. He knew the truth, and Zevran had spoken it.

Besides that, it seemed the damage was done, in any event. A few of the mages, elders of the Circle, as well as two templars, met with Alistair and Solona in secret before they left for the Circle, and he told them all he had seen in the Gauntlet. They left energized, a promise leaving Alistair's lips to do what he could to work within his powers as king. He owed that to Solona, and to Wynne, and, frankly, to himself, former templar initiate that he was.

He was grieved to learn of Elissa's injury, but relieved to see her whole. She had dejectedly admitted that she did not know if the child had survived, but Alistair couldn't manage anything but relief at the return of his wife, whole and healthy, if incredibly sore. If the child did not make it, there would be more. Elissa was his focus.

Morrigan's behavior did not puzzle him, of course, but he said nothing to his wife. He let her believe that Solona had succeeded in battling the archdemon in the Fade. Nobody else but Leliana knew that an archdemon killed the warden who slayed it. Their secret was safe for the foreseeable future.

Now he sat at his private dining table, his companions and his wife at his side. It had been several days and Elissa had not hemorrhaged, which was a positive indication that the baby had survived. Solona and Leliana were already learning to communicate once more, the bard already being rather adept at reading lips from afar as part of her bardic training. Zevran had been seen disappearing into his quarters – new ones, as he could not sleep in the bed he had shared with Wynne – led by Ellia, of all people. Alistair understood the need for the physical companionship, and knew Ellia would not hurt his friend. He hoped Zevran could find comfort in the arms of the gentle elven woman who had, in many ways, deflowered the king.

Sten had already left, citing his need to report to the Arishok. His farewell had been simple, merely telling them all that it was an honor to fight with them, and that he hoped they fared well until his people came to order this land in chaos. He then merely walked away, his sword and a small pack of necessities upon his bare back, the warpaint of his people once more painted on his face and chest. Alistair and Solona both agreed that they would miss the proud man, even if they did not understand him.

Oghren would be leaving soon, as well, though he was making no moves to do anything but drink Alistair's ale and tell raunchy stories that weren't true. He had been shot down by too many of the king's servants to count, and so visited the Pearl with his gold – given by a grateful king – to find female companionship.

Natia was now sharing a suite of rooms with her elven friends, and could be seen sometimes holding hands with Soris as they walked through the gardens. They were an odd-looking couple, but Alistair could not deny that their affection for each other was genuine, and Elissa always commented on how sweet they were.

Shianni was given a position as one of the king's advisors, official liaison for the elves of the Alienage. She oversaw the cleansing and reconstruction of the alienage, as well as the care of those taking refuge at the palace. Her cousin, Kallian, helped, clearly finding her confidence again as she worked. Much to Alistair's astonishment, both Ellia and Elissa could be seen with Kallian's child by turns, bonding over the baby girl. Elissa said it was good practice, and a small thing she could do to help make up for how those in power had treated the child's mother. And she said she enjoyed Ellia's company, which was astounding to the king, as he had always thought Elissa would be jealous of Ellia. Clearly he had some things to learn still.

Ellia's delight in the baby made him smirk. Perhaps he should warn Zevran…

Now, seated at his table, he clinked his wineglass gently with a spoon, gathering everyone's attention. He watched as Solona directed Leliana's attention to the head of the table, and delighted in the warm smile the bard gave him. Solona, Zevran, and himself had managed to convince her over the course of a few days that she should not feel guilt for Wynne's death. Leliana was doing far better now, and seemed generally to be in good spirits.

It made the king's heart soar to see his family healing as it was.

"I wanted to make an announcement," he said, making sure Leliana's view of his face was unobstructed. "I have been thinking on it and discussing it with Elissa, and I think that the arling of Amaranthine should be gifted to Ferelden's Grey Wardens. The Order has been too long without a home in this country."

Solona blinked a few times. "Alistair, this is… it's too much!"

"Nonsense!" Elissa exclaimed. "It is ours to gift, and Fergus feels it is appropriate, as well! You will be neighbors, after all."

Solona seemed on the verge of saying something else, so Alistair cut her off. "It is done, Solona! The message is already on its way! It says you will leave in a month, though I'm sure there's some wiggle room there." He paused, raising a brow. "I told them to expect a certain redheaded bard, as well."

"Please tell me you did not inform them I was a bard," Leliana whined. It made Alistair smile. She was loathe to speak out loud to anybody but those in this room for fear of sparking a conversation she could not participate in. And while that would change as she became accustomed to her condition, he was proud to be among those she was so comfortable with.

"No, no, I did not. I merely said you were one of the Warden-Commander's companions during the Blight, and that you would be seen around quite a lot. I suspect even deaf you will be kicking the lot of our arses to the ground, and will help to train as Solona's builds our Order's numbers back up."

Leliana giggled. "Now that my balance has returned, I have already done so to Solona."

Solona sighed dramatically. "It was nice to be able to get the jump on you while I could…"

"At least your ability to be silent wasn't taken away as an advantage," Natia quipped. The dwarf was sometimes able to sneak up on Leliana when the bard could hear, but now the redhead was already learning how not to rely on her hearing and it was wreaking havoc on Natia's tactics.

Alistair smiled as they continued talking and joking. This was what he had always wanted, his family joined around the table. Some of them would leave, possibly forever, while others would stay around. But it didn't matter. He and Elissa would build a family to fill this table when those here were gone, and when they visited, possibly with their own families, then the king would simply fill the common dining hall with the raucous children of raucous people and he would be overjoyed for the chaos.

Taking his wife's hand, he raised his glass in a tiny toast. "We did it, my love."

Elissa smiled, touching her glass to his gently. "Yes, we did. Despite everything… we made it."

Lifting Elissa's hand, Alistair kissed the backs of her knuckles. They had loved, and lost, and some things would never be the same. But this moment was right, and good, and despite his mourning for the only mother he'd ever known, he was happy.

He could not ask for more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END!
> 
> There will be a simple epilogue. But. This is the end of Solona and Alistair's defeat of the Blight, or at least my retelling of it. Thank you all for reading, thank you to Diablo Kades and Raven Sinead for beta-reading, and also for becoming my friend during this process. The encouragement and idea-bouncing has been invaluable. I hope you enjoyed this year and a half long journey. And thanks for sticking with me to the end.


	75. Epilogue

The dew only took a few minutes to gather on the leaves to the point that Leliana could see it. It was truly remarkable, and something she had never known.

Until tonight. Tonight, she couldn't sleep.

Her world was always quiet. At night the blood slowed, her limbs grew heavy, and the world grew dark. But her world was just as silent as it had been throughout the day, her only companion the subtle pressure of blood as her heart pressed it through the vessels in her ears. Anything more she could not hear. And she was not even convinced it was that she _heard_ it, more just that she _felt_ it.

Because of this persistent silence, she had difficulty sleeping. She could not trust her ears to alert her to the presence of someone who should not be there, and it took away the peace of mind that allowed her to relax enough to fall asleep. In the palace this had not been a problem, but now, on their second night away from Denerim, she again could not sleep, despite how exhausted she was after two full days riding and only fitful dozing the night before. Even Max's constant vigilance, at the expense of his own sleep, did not do much to comfort her. She ended up keeping watch with him unofficially from her bedroll, occasionally dozing, but that was it.

Turning over once again, Leliana's eyes fell on Solona. The mage was in a simple shirt, the blanket of her bedroll having fallen down to her hip. They slept before the fire, the coals doing wonders to keep them warm in the crisp spring air. The Warden-Commander's mouth lay partly open, and by the looks of things, she snored slightly, though Leliana could of course not hear it. Reaching out with her hand, the bard gently laid it on Solona's shoulder. Waiting only a few seconds confirmed that Solona was indeed snoring, a slight vibration reverberating through her chest and into Leliana's fingers.

The mage shifted slightly in her sleep, really just the odd move of her arm, but it caused the muscles in her shoulders to bunch under Leliana's hand. The bard couldn't help but to glide her hand further, feeling the definition of her lover under the coarse woolen shirt. They had not made love since before the archdemon. The idea of Solona touching her, pushing inside of her, terrified the bard. She was robbed of the most important sense after touch for lovemaking, and she worried it would make her feel isolated from her lover. She could not bear feeling that way.

Oddly, any cause for self-consciousness over her body was gone. Her skin… was whole. Alistair had told her that her body had been charred beyond recognition. The fire had burned the scarring away, and when Wynne had healed her, she had regenerated new skin that was unblemished.

Now she just had an unseen scar.

But she could not bring herself to bare this newly-whole skin to Solona. Not yet.

Poor Solona… She must be nearly _aching_ with need, as it had been _weeks_ since they had made love.

The guilt returned. Most days Leliana was very good at just being grateful to be alive. But other days she wished Wynne had not chosen to give her life for Leliana's. Wynne had so much more to offer the world, especially with Leliana deaf as she was. On top of that guilt – the guilt for being responsible for Wynne's death – she also felt guilty for denying her lover. It was not that Solona had even attempted to do more than kiss Leliana intimately, but still Leliana felt guilty. She knew the mage's libido was strong and steady, and that a likely celebration for _everyone_ else was a passionate night with their chosen partner. But Solona had not pushed for it, and Leliana was too awkward to find her feet in the once-familiar dance of love and seduction.

It simply would not be the same, and that frightened her and frustrated her by turns.

And yet her hand remained splayed upon Solona, having traveled down her back and coming to rest on the mage's waist. Almost without thought her fingers dug in, and when she looked back to Solona's face she found the mage's eyes were open, bright in the gloom. A hand stole up to Leliana's cheek, softly caressing it, those slate-grey eyes intense for one who had been asleep but a moment before.

They just held each other's gaze for a timeless moment. Leliana took in Solona's scent, tea and honey and the somewhat sour smell of sleep, in awe at how strongly she detected it now more than ever. She could feel the heat of her love through the woolen shirt. She only needed to taste her to see if that sense, as well, was heightened…

The moment ended abruptly, their lips crashing together under the moon and the stars. Solona's mouth tasted warm and wet, her scent wrapping around Leliana in a warm, familiar embrace. Or perhaps that was Solona's arms?

The sensations were like nothing she'd ever felt before. _How in all Thedas did I think being unable to hear would separate me from her?_ Their clothes were gone before the bard knew it, her mind trying desperately to focus on one sensation while being gloriously distracted by another. Solona's eyes rarely left hers, and while Leliana did not have the presence of mind to read the mage's lips, she knew in her heart, without even the shadow of a doubt, that it was whispers of love that fell from her lover's lips.

Leliana's skin was on fire, her center pounding with blood, and when Solona pulled her up to straddle her lap and pressed inside of her, an arm wrapped around the bard's waist to steady her, it was all Leliana could do not to scream her pleasure. It was joyous and desperate and wonderful and _familiar_ and _how in the Maker's name_ did she think that this would be anything but glorious?!

She came with her lips locked with Solona's, their bodies moving in tandem, drenching her lover's hand in her own fluids. But neither of them cared. Let them be a mess when they met their guide the next morning. Let all know what had occurred here, between these two women. They had stopped – and survived – the Blight to be with each other. If they had done that, then nothing could pull them apart ever again.

Some time later, both lovers now thoroughly sated, Solona pulled a very naked Leliana to lie on her shoulder, arm wrapped around the bard and holding her close. This was wonderful. The redhead might even be able to get to sleep.

Looking down at her, the mage smiled sloppily at her. "I love you, Leliana."

Leliana's smile matched the Warden-Commander's as she answered in kind. " _Je t'aime aussi_ , Solona." _Always will I love you, my warden._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy fuck. It's done. Wow.
> 
> Thank you for reading and staying with me. Yesterday and today are the anniversary of my mother's death. I withdrew from school and a whole lot of shit has gone down since then. But. I finished this. It's just fanfiction, but I finished this monstrously epic work, and I am damn proud of myself for it. I hope you enjoyed it half as much as I enjoyed playing with these characters. :)
> 
> On to the next!


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